Author : Harry E. “Buddy” Payne, Jr.
Where did you come from?
If you will think carefully about that question, you will see that any answer you give (other than some answer like “I don’t know.”) will be based on the testimony of someone or something else. You can trace your immediate family tree only through human witnesses (your parents, grandparents, etc.) or documents written by human beings (birth certificates, etc.). You probably cannot trace your personal family tree back more than a few hundred years. Beyond that it becomes the history of a nation or group of people which may be read in the ancient writings of that nation or group. Eventually your search will have to become a search for the beginning of mankind itself. This search will reach into the distant past; past the time of recorded history. “Reading” things like ancient pottery and fossil remains is much less certain than reading written documents. It is open to much interpretation and error. Clearly no answer to the question above can be based on direct observation.
The Bible claims to be the inspired testimony of the Creator Himself.
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (2 Timothy 3:16)
“Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
To those who have come to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, the answer to the question above is based on the faith that the One Who created us has told us about it.
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3)
“So God created man in His own image in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”(Genesis 1:27)
Such a faith need not be “blind faith,” because there is an abundance of evidence that the Bible is God’s Word, as you will see in this series. (This belief system could be called “Biblical creationism.”)
Many have come to believe that mankind and life itself must have been created by a Supreme Intelligence (God) without basing that faith on the testimony of the Bible. The testimony of the world itself and human reasoning about the testimony have led them to their faith. (This belief system could be called “the theory of special creation.”)
Others have come to believe that mankind and all living things evolved from a common ancestry which in turn arose from non-living matter by natural means, without the necessity of a Creator. These too, base their faith on the testimony of the world and their interpretation of it. (This belief system is called “the general theory of evolution”).
Every possible position you can take in answering the question “Where did you come from?” is a belief, a position of faith, faith in the written testimony of the Creator, or in the human interpretation of the testimony of the world, or both.
Every possible answer to the question can also be classified under one of two world views, supernaturalism (theism) or naturalism. “Naturalism” is the view of the world that says everything we observe can be explained by the interaction of matter and natural forces. There is no need to believe in anything supernatural. This world view is well illustrated by the following quotation from the Humanist Manifestos I and II:
“We therefore affirm the following:
First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process…
Sixth: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of new thought.” (page 8)
“We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural…As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deities. Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural.”(page 16).
Supernaturalism (theism) says that nature itself cannot account for all that we observe. There must be a Supreme Intelligence (God) beyond nature. We know that a great work of art, such as the dome of the Cistine chapel, was not produced by the materials from which it was made. The forces of nature acting on the concrete, plaster and paints would never have produced the painting on the dome. The painting on the dome required an intelligence (a man named Leonardo da Vinci) who placed the marks of his genius on the materials. In the same way, those who accept the world view of Supernaturalism believe that the universe and life bear the marks of a Supreme Intelligence (God) whose omniscience (i.e., unlimited knowledge) is beyond our ability to understand.
The two world views can be summarized with the following equations:
(associated with the general theory of evolution)
(which is eternal)
(associated with the theory of special creation and/or Biblical creationism)
(which was created)
There are those who believe God made the first life forms and then all other life forms evolved from these simple life forms without any further help from God. These people, usually referred to as “theistic evolutionists,” would accept the first equation above under Supernaturalism and the second equation under Naturalism. This mixed view which accepts the necessity of God at one point, in the origin of the first life forms, but rejects it at other times is not supported by the evidence from the Word of God or the world.
A person who believes in special creation because he believes the Bible is the Word of God cannot accept theistic evolution for at least the following reasons (see Genesis 1 and 2):
1. The Bible teaches that God created distinct kinds of living things. There is no indication that one kind gradually changed into another kind.
2. Each kind was to reproduce after its kind. While there was potential for variation, there could only be variation within each kind.
3. Man, unlike any other living creature, was created in the image of God. He was a special, distinct creation.
A person who believes in God because of the testimony of the world cannot logically accept theistic evolution either:
1. It is illogical to accept that an Intelligent Creator would leave matters to chance and “create” all life forms from the first simple forms by means of evolution through random mutation and natural selection.
2. The evidence from the world of living things supports only change within limits. The most logical interpretation of the evidence is that certain basic kinds were created to vary within limits.
3. If the theistic evolutionist believes in an all-knowing, purposeful God, it seems completely illogical that He would allow nature to wander aimlessly along random paths of evolution for billions of years until man emerged.
The most reasonable answer to our question at the beginning of this lesson is that you came from human beings who were originally created by God. All other “kinds” of living things were also created. The testimony of God’s Word and His World agree.
