Transcendental Commentary on the Issues of the Day
Every month I get Acts and Facts, the newsletter of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a Christian organization out to demolish the evolutionists. The newsletter brings me spirited updates on the latest round in a seemingly endless series of debates between the God-fearing creationists and the atheistic evolutionists.
The creationists believe that the Holy Bible is the absolute word of God and hence the last word on creation, any contradiction being false, diabolical, and unfit to be taught in the schools. At the very least, they declare, the biblical version should be presented as an alternative to the atheistic theory of evolution.
The evolutionists object to the creationists' claim on the ground that the Bible teaches religion, not science. The biblical version of creation is not supported by any hard scientific facts proof, the evolutionists say, that the universe was not created but rather evolved from a tiny point of concentrated matter the size of a pinhead.
Mysteriously, this pinhead of inert matter grew and grew until it became a good-sized chunk. Just as mysteriously, the chunk exploded. And the universe came into being. Gradually, over a period of many millions of years, from the random pushes and pulls of subatomic particles, the pieces fell into place and the creation oops, sorry, wrong word existence, as we know it, developed.
The evolution theory doesn't deny the need or possibility of a transcendent creator. After all, even a tiny pinhead speck of concentrated matter has to come from somewhere.
Whence came the speck? Right now the evolutionists have no stock answer to this question. They are determined, however, to come up with an alternative to God. At all costs, they want to avoid resorting to mysticism.
How this dispute will finally be settled, if it is ever to be settled, is of paramount concern to the people at ICR, and for good reason. Should the evolution theory be established as incontrovertible in its present form, it would put holes big enough to pass a church through in the Christians' claim that the Bible is the absolute word of God a welcome event, no doubt, in the minds of those who believe religion is holding back the progress of civilization.
I am not prepared to settle this issue one way or the other, because the Krsna consciousness version of creation* [*The Vedic explanation of creation appeared in BACK TO GODHEAD 19.9 in the article "How He Creates."] which I cannot present in this limited space supports neither the evolutionists nor the creationists. But, isn't there something about atheistic evolution that confounds logic and common sense?
Atheism asks us to agree that everything came from nothing. In other words, on the question of how the universe came about, atheism says, "No intelligence, no designer, no creator nothing was involved. It just happened of its own accord."
To put it another way, atheism favors Absolute Ignorance over Absolute Wisdom in trying to explain all the achievements of creative skill. Let's try applying this practically. Sit back and imagine for a few moments someone successfully convincing you that this short essay had no author. . . . It's absurd, isn't it?