The Old Man and the Sea Monster

I’m not that smart. I’m a man of little faith. That’s why I could never be an atheist.

It is curious to me how the most common response to Christianity — and particularly to young-Earth Creationists — is that we are unable to “understand” science, or that we flat-out reject it. Those of us who believe in a literal 6-day Creation of the world and everything in it within the last 10,000 years are often accused of doing “mental gymnastics” to reconcile our faith in the Word of God against the scientific “fact” of evolution.

Personally, I think they give me too much credit. I’m not creative enough to come up with answers to every question posed by the scientific community. I’m not faithful enough to blindly believe truth claims with no basis in observable fact. I just differ on what is observable. Who is the real gymnast here?

Most scientists, and nearly all science textbooks, begin with the pre-supposition that Darwinian evolution is a fact. With that pre-supposition, scientists MUST make the evidence fit into the realm of evolution, or their entire worldview breaks down. They are unwilling to allow for any possibility of error in the basis for their understanding of the evidence, because the implications of a Creator who cares very much about His Creation are too serious for them.

Creationists, contrary to popular belief, also use science (yes, REAL science) to support our truth claims. And we, too, begin with a pre-supposition: that God exists, and that His Word is accurate in its depiction of the creation of the world. Unlike atheists, we really have nothing to lose (and therefore no reson to deceive others), because if the evidence doesn’t support our worldview, then we have no judgment forthcoming, and are free to do and believe whatever we want (including believing in God!).

So here we have two worldviews which are totally irreconcilable. They could both be false, but they cannot both be true. So which one does the evidence support? Real science ought to tell us, when we simply let facts speak for themselves.

I cannot exhaustively cover this in one blog (besides, people a lot smarter than me on both sides have already done that), so we’ll just concentrate on a story that appeared in this morning’s London Times: “Predator X was the most fearsome animal ever to swim the oceans“.

What an amazing creature is described here! 50-ft long, weighing 45 tons, 10-ft long jaw with bite strength more than ten times that of T-Rex, two extra “turbo-charged” flippers giving it incredible closing speed… this bad boy was king of the sea!

Obviously, this article is presented from the evolutionary worldview, as evidenced by the reference to animals living “210 million years ago”. You see, without allowing for the possibility of a Creator, evolutionists have to rely on millions and billions of years for life to have evolved. Because there is NO empirical evidence of macroevolution (one species changing into another, as opposed to microevolution, or “Natural Selection”, in which localized genetic mutations happen within a species), the only explanation they have is that it must have happened over an immense span of time… which is convenient because they can never be “proven” wrong since we can’t observe enough years for these changes to take place!

Scientists have designated “Predator X” a pliosaur — a variation of a plesiosaur — which, by their reckoning, has been extinct for 65 million years. Scientists do run into a bit of a problem, though, when fossilized remains of other plesiosaurs have been found in bodies of water known to be less than 10,000 years old, such as Scotland’s Loch Ness. Skeptics have always discounted the famed sightings of “Nessie”, which had been described long before these remains were found as looking like what is now known as a plesiosaur. After all, there couldn’t possibly have been such creatures existing at the same time as man!

In fact, every time there has been a sighting of something fitting the description of a plesiosaur, science has explained it away as something else. And who am I to argue? These are smart people!

However, doing due diligence, let’s see what this evidence would look like within the context of our Biblical worldview. I mean, that’s what the “scientific method” is, right? Creating and testing a hypothesis to see if the evidence substantiates it?

The Bible makes mention of “sea monsters” on several occasions, putting them within the timeline of human history. Psalm 74:12-13 says,

“Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.”

Job 41 gives a very detailed description of a specific sea monster, known as Leviathan, as God displays His might by boasting about one of His more impressive creations (my emphasis added):

“Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him (Man can see this creature). No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up (Of course not! Would you?)… I will not keep silence concerning his limbs (What was so special about its limbs? The first article referenced in this post dealt with how remarkable were the “turbo-charged” rear flippers) or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame… Who can open the doors of his face (With a bite strength far exceeding any other known creature)? Around his teeth is terror (10-ft jaw covered in dagger-like teeth the size of cucumbers). His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated (Paleontologists have described plesiosaurs as having a nearly impenetrable armor plating, but one that would have had to be very flexible… like a bunch of shields joined together?)… Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin (Had men tried in vain to hunt Leviathan?). He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotting wood (The hardest substances known to men in Job’s time were easily crushed in its jaws)… Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired (Predator X was not only larger and stronger, but much faster than anything else in the sea). On earth there is not its like, a creature without fear…”

Does Predator X possibly fit the description of this creature from the oldest book in the Bible? Sure sounds like it to me! But what could have possibly caused the demise of such a creature? Evolutionary science says they either evolved (into something bigger/better?) or died out due to natural selection, the Ice Age, an asteroid collision with Earth… any number of reasons. What about the Bible? Is there an alternate explanation?

From Psalm 104:

“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it (There goes Leviathan, cruising the ocean next to man-made ships!). These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust (God is sovereign over His creation; when He stops feeding them, species become extinct).”

Similarly, Psalm 74:14 says:

You crushed the heads of Leviathan (plural, as in multiple creatures, not multiple heads); you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

Admittedly, this does not “prove” the authenticity of Scripture, but neither does the evidence “disprove” the Biblical record. Conversely, science has still never “proven” the theory of Darwinian evolution. So why then are “scientists” so quick to throw out one plausible explanation to cling so desperately to a theory which, 150 years after Origin of the Species, still has more questions than answers? Many of the world’s foremost atheists and evolutionists have already answered that question for us:

“Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam & Eve and original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God… and if Jesus is not the redeemer who dies for our sins — and this is what evolution means — then Christianity is nothing.” ~ G. Richard Bozarth. The meaning of evolution. American Atheist, September, 1978, p. 30.

But why not go straight to the source?

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” ~ Charles Darwin, cited in Michael J. Behe (1998), Darwin’s Black Box. New York, NY: Free Press, p. 39.

Of course, Darwin said this long before microbiology allowed us to observe the immense complexity of even the simplest of microorganisms. Evolutionary science says that all these intricate and perfectly designed evolved lifeforms just happened by random chance. What about the Bible?

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” ~ Genesis 1:1

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” ~ Psalm 19:1

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” ~ Psalm 53:1

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened… Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” ~ Romans 1:18-25

Interesting. The Bible says that creation itself will reveal the existence of God! If the Biblical worldview is correct, then the evidence MUST support that through clearly perceived (as in, it doesn’t take a scientist to figure it out!), undeniable PROOF of design by an intelligent and perfect Creator, as opposed to evolution. But if it’s that obvious, then surely our most prestigious scientists and athiests would see it, right?

“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” ~ Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) in his book, What a Mad Pursuit

But WHY must they keep it in mind if it’s not clearly perceived? Tell me we can find better reasoning than that from the man behind the “Clear-Thinking Oasis“…

“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” ~ Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Even at his advancing age, Dawkins remains limber as ever on the mental parallel bars of genius and delusion. These men have spent their entire lives denying what God has made plain to them. They are without excuse.

But what about you? When you look around and see all the wonderful systems that work so flawlessly together, from a molecular level to the cosmos itself, ask yourself this question, and be honest when you answer:

Does your mind tell you that all you see just worked itself into existence by random chance, or do you see an element of design that is the fingerprint of God?