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Making Sense to Today's Scientists
Ralph D. Winter, January 2004
(Some tentative thoughts—asking for feedback)
Part I: Could this have happened?
The Universe
Many scientists believe that about 14 billion years ago the utterly amazing and puzzling ?universe? exploded into being. Such estimates also indicate that almost five billion years ago our planet Earth came into existence as a part of a relatively minor solar system which in turn was part of an exceedingly larger galaxy, which in turn was one of billions of galaxies in the whole universe.
Planet Earth
When the planet Earth came into existence, all there was at that time, so far as we know, was what is called ?the inorganic? world, that is, no life forms. Inorganic matter is itself an amazing world of complexity, consisting of an array of more than a hundred different and internally complex ?atoms? and combinations thereof (molecules) plus electromagnetic radiation of many sorts (radio waves, infrared rays, visible light, cosmic rays), as well as mysterious forces such as gravitation and magnetism.
Life
However, to this already highly complex reality something new would be added: life, that is, the
?organic? world. Most paleontologists believe that the first tiny life forms began to appear on this planet about three or four billion years ago but these forms were so tiny and ?boneless? that fossils of their exis- tence that far back are of no help in clarifying their time of origin.
Apparently, however, during the next three billion years, larger and increasingly complex forms of life did appear, although not until close to the end of that period were they large enough (measurable in inches) and of such a character to leave fossil evidences. Meanwhile, disturbingly, during the entire period of Earth?s history the planet has been pummelled mas- sively due to weather, plate tectonics (continental drift), volcanic activity, earthquakes and collisions of asteroidal bodies from outer space. (It has been estimated that about fifty tons is added to the earth?s weight each day from outer space objects and dust from such objects that burn up in our atmosphere before striking the earth.) The larger of these collisions have been very destructive of life forms.
The Cambrian Explosion/Predators
Then, relatively suddenly, a little over 500 million years ago the so-called ?Cambrian Explosion? took place when, puzzlingly, a vast profusion of new forms of life appeared. Even more strangely and now distressingly, paleontologists widely believe, life-destroying forms of life (predators) appeared for the first time in the lengthy period of the development of life. This sudden appearance of a destructive, you might say, evil, force has constituted something that, from that point on, has become an absolutely major and horrify- ing feature of the natural world drastically affecting all forms of life including the human being?whose most extensive single activity has always been that of
coping with disease.
Asteroids
Scientists were shocked when the first moon landing reported back that the pock-marked surface of the moon was not due to volcanic craters but to impact craters. This discovery set off a gold rush on earth to find the equivalent battering from outer space. As a result, Scientific American in May of 2002 published a diagram pin-pointing sixty impact craters since the Cambrian Explosion, for each their date and size?all of them larger than fifteen miles in diameter?and all of them having significant effect on life forms at the time of their impact. Today we are aware that millions of tons of the earth?s surface (inevitably including life forms) have landed on Mars, and vice versa, due to asteroidal collisions that typically splash up matter which goes into orbit eventually (potentially) landing elsewhere.
That is, the development of life forms both before and after the Cambrian Explosion has had a checkered career. One of the most distinctive periods of post Cambrian life was that which was dominated by the thousands of different species of what are popularly called Dinosaurs. This form of life followed the largest of all the asteroidal collisions about 250 million years ago. Most scientists today believe that the Dinosaur type of life was extinguished by another major impact from outer space sixty five million years ago?the evidence being a 100-mile-in-diameter crater in Mexico?s Yucatan Peninsula.
Mammals
Mammals apparently really came into their own once the dinosaurs were out of the picture. Then, very recently mammals have mainly been driven to extinction?virtually all mammals over 100 pounds have been killed off by humans in the just the last few moments of Earth?s history.
What Does This Mean
If what has been said thus far actually happened, we clearly have an amazing story crying out for interpretation. Was there a supreme being behind all of this? If so, was he only temporarily involved or does he continue to be involved? If no supreme intelligence was there, how did the entire inorganic universe pop into being, and how did the organic universe pop into being? What is the rhyme or reason behind all of this?
Quite frankly, for instance, outer space does not strike one as a very intelligible work of a god of love and peace. Neither does even the pockmarked physical history of this planet?with all of its violence of wind, shifting continents, volcanic explosions and deadly collisions from outer space, which could reappear at any moment.
Then, too, in regard to the organic world, there could have been no life of any sort without the inorganic world, that is, if it had not already been true that hundreds of different ?atoms,? all structurally ordered, had not already existed, not to mention the incredible complexity within the nucleus of each atom?as well as all those rays and forces. Thus, it would appear that there is no great gain in assuming that life itself developed by a random process if the basic components of that life, awesomely complex, remain totally unexplained.
A Supreme Intelligence
One theory might be that a supreme intelligence had reasons known only to himself for creating the universe and our planet the way they are. Yet, from a purely human point of view the significance of earth- quakes, volcanic eruptions and asteroidal collisions, etc., is understandably negative. It is all very prejudi- cial to the survival of life forms. Thus, it is hard to understand why life would have been created on this planet in view of these flagrant dangers.
However, to try to understand the involvement of a supreme intelligence in the long, long story of the appearance of life forms is even more difficult. Why would an omniscient being take so long, with so many apparent false starts and dead-end streets? And most difficult of all, Why would such a being have introduced the Cambrian profusion of predatory, life-destroying life forms?
Trying to understand the apparently inhospitable universe or even the formidable natural dangers of this planet are one thing. Suppose we focus more precisely on the meaning of the presence of life combined with life-destroying forms of life.
Intermediate Beings, Good and Bad
Suppose a supreme being intentionally created some intermediate beings with human-like free will,
creatures that do not grow old but do learn and grow wiser, and with their free will are able to do lots of things, such as carry out the will of their creator, even rebel against the supreme being and seek to overturn his work.
If these less-than-infinite intermediate beings were the ones from the beginning employed in the development of life forms, then, suddenly both the length of time involved and the occasional shortcomings of their work would be understandable. Most important, their capacity to turn against their creator would enable an understanding of the appearance of destructive forms of life in the Cambrian Explosion and a nature which since that time has been ?red in tooth and claw.?
Meanwhile, the sudden appearance of homo sapiens in the final few minutes of this story presents both a marvelous and ugly picture. Marvelous, because no other form of life has exhibited anywhere near the same intelligence. Ugly, because no other form of life has been so cruel and dangerous to its own kind or as devastating to virtually all other forms of life.
If we build on this point of view it would appear that a rebellious and destructive type of intermediate beings has corrupted and transformed homo sapiens from its first appearance.
The Jewish Bible
The Jewish Bible comes into the picture here. It would seem to begin with stories of the emergence of homo sapiens and seems to describe the various stages following a particular mass extinction in the region of what today we call the Fertile Crescent. An asteroidal collision would seem to explain that this particular region, or ?known world,? became ?formless and void,? the challenge to new forms of life being that of replenishing that particular ?known world? with both animal and human life.
It is important to note that the Hebrew language of Genesis 1:1 allows it to read, ?When God began to ren- ovate things, the (local) earth was formless and void.?
[Is it not reasonable that an ancient document would refer specifically to the world with which its hearers were acquainted? They did not know of a planetary spheroid, a solar system, much less a uni- verse. Do we not read anachronistically when we assume 1:1 refers to the universe?]
Curiously, what is typical in Earth?s history of smaller, regionally-significant asteroidal collisions is the throwing up of masses of dust which does become a global phenomenon. The Sun and the Moon disap- pear totally. Gradually, as the dust settles, there is a faintly lightened period in each 24 hours. Later, rays of light get through to the surface of the earth and with those rays rainbows become possible, etc..
Homo Sapiens
But the greatest novelty of the series of events described in Genesis is the appearance on this planet for the first time of a form of life (homo sapiens) that has apparently been intelligent enough and capable enough either to rebuild the planet or destroy it.
When did homo sapiens appear? It may be possible to avoid a great deal of discussion about the exact time of the first appearance of homo sapiens if we don?t bother too much with fossils but look rather at the first appearances of what can be called cultural sophistication. This is, in fact, a recent scholarly trend.
If we do that, two major evidences of distinctively human sophistication stand out. One is the first appearance of the selective breeding of plants, produc- ing the wholly artificial major foods of wheat, corn, and rice. The other would be the appearance of the similar genetic alteration of animal life in the taming of wild animals, such as dogs from wolves. Both of these major events are calculated to have begun about eleven thousand years ago, just as the last great ice age receded, and both require an intelligence far beyond that of any of the so-called hominids.
In addition to these two ?advances? of human achievement, of course, we have many other examples of truly amazing human tinkering with nature, such as the harnessing of electricity and radiation in a thou- sand ways, or the discovery of germs and the attempt to eradicate or suppress the most dangerous types thereof, etc..
Set Backs
Nevertheless ?war and pestilence? more than anything else have greatly postponed the replenishment of the earth by humans. The so-called Second World War was the first war in history, it is thought, in which fewer people died of war activity than disease. However, a gradual understanding and considerable conquest of disease has by now allowed the precipitous skyrocketing of population. How can we explain the meaning of this partial human success against war and disease creating a problem?
We have already supposed that a supreme being may have created intermediate beings which have been constantly at work over billions of years in the development of life (similar perhaps to thousands of intelligent engineers being constantly at work during the 100-year evolution of the American automobile). Also, we have supposed that there came a time (the Cambrian Explosion, 500 million years ago) when some of these intermediate beings broke loose and began to sabotage the very work to which they had so long contributed. This destructive conflict could have gone on at the very DNA level, since these intermedi- ate beings had already gained the intelligence neces- sary to tinker with genetic formulae, producing not only vicious and destructive new versions of animal life but also pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites with their deadly toll. The overarching ?war? being that between these evil intelligent beings and humans, not between humans and humans.
Adapting to the Onslaught
Under such wartime circumstances, with 80 to 90
percent of all babies dying in infancy during much of human history, it would not be illogical to suppose that the intermediate beings still loyal to the supreme being would have defensively altered the human DNA so as to become artificially prolific. So with much of animal life. Thus, for example, John Wesley and his brother Charles as recently as the 18th Century were numbers 15 and 17 in the series of births to their mother, Susanna, even though no more than five chil- dren were alive at any one time. Our even more recent dilemma of exploding population has thus become one of artificially coping (e.g. birth control, abortion, infanticide) with an equally artificial highly prolific species of human.
Missions
Furthermore, such wartime circumstances give quite a different twist to the conventional outlook on Christian mission activity. Missions usually focus on rescuing humans from this world rather than restoring creation, or, to employ a biblical phrase, ?destroying the works of the devil.?
We may quite often speak glibly of glorifying God in all the earth, and wishing to see all peoples worship Him when, in fact, to do that is an uphill climb, all of nature being distorted, life forms becoming vicious and deadly. If no evil intelligence is involved or recognized and the supreme being is supposed to be the one mysteriously authoring even the most tragic evils,
how are we to rescue that supreme being from gaining a reputation of mysterious indifference to human suffering? Thus, it would seem reasonable to believe that he has never been indifferent but has, for example, from the creation of homo sapiens been encouraging and expecting his human followers (as well as his still-loyal intermediate beings) to ally themselves with him in the conquest of all sources of suffering, distortion, destruction and evil, in a biblical phrase, destroying the works of the devil.
If, however, all that is what it takes to glorify God, is that what missions are doing?
Part II: Restating these ideas as a very brief scenario
God created intelligent angels with free will who, following his guidance over a long period of time (since they are finite), put together an immense variety of life forms with successively greater free will and less instinctive guidance.
One day about 500 million years ago, by which time angels in general had acquired a very advanced understanding of life, of DNA, RNA, protein structures, etc., a leading angel turned against God and lead many angels to rebel with him. As a result, in the Cambrian Period, life forms began to display for the first time genetically altered life-destroying characteristics at every size-level from viruses to larger animal life.
The good angels, with God's guidance, simultaneously fought back with all their acquired insight into the nature of life forms, designing and altering genetically as many as possible with never-before-seen defensive features such as speed, horns, quills, shells and scales to enable defense against animals of similar size. Then, in order to defend the larger life forms from smaller life forms such as viruses, bacteria and parasites, the good angels had to develop internal defenses, such as what we call “the immune system.” This defensive system alone in the case of the human species can detect and demobilize three thousand billion different attacking pathogens. The awesome extent of these defenses readily confers an idea of the scope of evil in nature, that is, the ingenuity of Satan and his forces in distorting and destroying God's good creation and in the process tearing down His glory.
Good angels continued to develop new forms of life but they have often been distorted into destructiveness by the evil angels.
God again and again stamped out much or even nearly all forms of life through sixty major asteroidal collisions in the last 500 million years (since the fall of Satan), the most recent large collision being 65 million years ago ending the reign of terror of the truly atrocious violence of the thousands of different predatory "dinosaurs."
The “Edenic Plan” now was launched, perhaps eleven thousand years ago, in precisely the area where a much smaller asteroid impacted the Middle East, reducing that region of the earth into a “formlessness and void” condition (Gen 1:2) and at the same time engulfing the entire globe with an impenetrable canopy of dust in the atmosphere. Outside that area diseased and predatory animals continued to exist. As this dust settled, night and day became vaguely visible, then eventually rays of light and thus rainbows. In that area, good angels under God, painstakingly recreated life forms in their original non-carnivorous state (as explicitly stated in Gen 1: 29 and 30), and went on to create a radically different form of life, the human being “in His image” which is variously called homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens.
This new form of life was intended to be an ally of the good angels fighting against Satan and his works, but the entire Edenic project fell prey to Satan, animal life and human life became carnivorous (Gen 9:3), man himself being seduced by Satan to become more a survivor than a soldier, preoccupied with his own salvation far more than the defeat of Satan.
As part of this onslaught humans have been deceived into believing that the distressing violence and suffering in nature is God's initiative not Satan's.Thus, we do not even see disease germs as the work of Satan (of course, Calvin did not know germs existed). As a result we are not fighting against the whole range of deadly pathogens in the Name of Christ even though the New Testament clearly states that “the Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of Satan (I Jn 3:8).”
Our earthly mission begins to appear more clearly as we recognize as best we can the full extent of the “works of Satan” (shifting the blame to Satan and thus glorifying God), and as we ally ourselves with the good angels in destroying the works of Satan. “Without God we can't and without us He won't.” Our mission is clarified as we learn more and more about the DNA-level mechanisms of distortion which account for most of the suffering in this world.
This approach, note well, removes for millions of thinking intellectuals the largest single intellectual barrier to belief--the question of “Why does a good, all-powerful God do evil?”
The story of man has quite apparently been that of groping back into mission, very gradually and progressively subduing both war and pestilence, the evidence being the recently staggering population explosion and, temporarily, a reverse problem: overpopulation. This explosion has weakened resistance to disease and even the war against disease. The secular world in so far as it is seeded with basic Christian cosmology and world view is very slowly but steadily groping its way in a war against disease germs, but is not encouraged nor heavily backed by Bible believers, either theologically or literally.
This is where we are. Billions today are spent dealing with the results of disease but pennies for the eradication of disease pathogens, and ominously, Evangelical mission forces are almost totally blind to this major dimension of mission. |
