Immanuel.at-Forum for Discussion Discourse 81: Intelligent design or evolution?

(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)

(A Creator, or evolution? - the battle continues / Report, ORF [Austrian Radio Broadcast] 00, 2005-11-22)*)

Scientists overstepping bounds
When last summer the supreme primate of the Catholic Church in Austria, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, intervened in the discussion about evolution and the creation story, it seems he wanted to introduce rationality to a debate that was increasingly being conducted on the basis of ideological conviction. Speaking on Sunday at the Episcopal Palace in Vienna, Schönborn told the news agency Reuters that he had wanted to show where scientists, as the church sees it, are off limits. Schönborn defended the “intelligent plan” view of creation.

Vatican astronomer criticizes the “intelligent plan”
Meanwhile the Vatican’s top astronomer, one of the highest ranking scientists at the Holy See, commands attention when he states that the “intelligent plan” is not a science.

Bible taken literally
Schönborn, who was thought to be one of the favorites in the last papal election, published some comments in the New York Times in mid-July which drew down the wrath of American scientists. The sharpest critics of the 60-year-old cardinal told him he was a fathead if he wanted to replace the conclusions of science with a doctrine of creation history. This “creationism” is based on a literal interpretation of the biblical story of creation.

Coincidence or higher intelligence?
The follower of Pope Benedict XVI now rebutted the arguments of his critics in an interview, and once more described his position, already outlined in his NYT article “Finding Design in Nature”, which relies on the theory of “intelligent design”. Advocates of this theory, while recognizing the findings of evolution theorist Charles Darwin, nonetheless think evolution is based not on coincidence but on a higher intelligence.

Vatican astronomer: of “apples and oranges”
The Vatican now contradicts Schönborn, at least in part. The idea of “intelligent design” is not a science, and should not be taught in science lessons, according to a statement made on Friday by Vatican head astronomer, the Jesuit George Coyne, whose views aroused a lot of interest. He said it was wrong to place the theory of evolution and the “intelligent plan” idea alongside one another in schools. “The intelligent plan is not a science, even if people act as if it were. The theory ought to be taught under the heading of religion or the cultural sciences, not as a scientific subject,” Coyne went on to say.

”Science explains the universe”
Coyne was referring here to the debate between “creationists” and “evolutionists”, which is being carried on principally in the USA. The creationists want to have the “intelligent plan” made a firm part of public school teaching curricula. In June Coyne published an article in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, in which he confirmed God’s role in creation but at the same time restricted it by arguing that science is sufficient to explain the history of the universe.

Getting away from the idea of God the dictator
”If we are to take the findings of modern science seriously, as well as the results of modern biblical research, then Christians have to say goodbye to the idea of a ‘dictator God’, a Creator God or even Newton’s God, who designs the universe to run like a ticking clock.” God should rather be seen as a supportive and encouraging parent, said Coyne.

What is at stake
Behind this controversy is the battle between “creationists” and “evolutionists”, which has been bitterly contested for years, in the USA above all. The first group enjoys the backing of America’s influential evangelical Christians in denying the findings of modern biology that build on the foundations of Darwin’s theory, according to which the various animal and plant species evolved on the basis of natural selection and adaptation. The creationists insist that all life was created by God. In many American schools the pressure of evangelical groups means that the theory of evolution is not allowed to be taught.

Church insists on creation
It was supposed up till now that the Catholic church took a more open-minded view of the theory of evolution - to which, according to the New York Times, there is absolutely no serious scientific alternative. This was because Pope John Paul II had admitted in a 1996 statement that the evolution of living creatures was “more than just a hypothesis”. But Schönborn’s article referred to other statements made by John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI, of whom Schönborn is thought to be a follower, which point to the church’s insistence on the principle of creation.

Schönborn explains his approach
“Reason can recognize that matter does not organize itself independently,” Schönborn said in an interview with Reuters - “that at the very least matter requires information, and information is an expression of intelligence.” Then the next step is the question what kind of intelligence we have to do with. “My answer as a believing Christian - of course I think it is the intelligence of the Creator - follows obviously from this.”

“Darwin can’t explain everything”
Schönborn showed himself to be surprised at the sharp criticism called forth by his saying that Darwin cannot explain everything. If the theory of evolution is a scientific hypothesis, said the Cardinal, then it must be prepared in its turn to be subject to scientific criticism. But this in his view is by no means the case. He thinks there is practically a ban on discussion. “Critics of the theory of evolution are discriminated against or discredited right from the start.”

Backup in high places
According to the Catholic press agency Kathpress, Pope Benedict XVI himself supports the position taken by Schönborn. About two weeks ago the Pope, in a meditation on psalm 135 given at a General Audience, spoke explicitly about the “intelligent plan” of the cosmos - the same term that Schönborn had used in his comments.

*) This report has been taken from the ORF website (Österreichischer Rundfunk Fernsehen: Austrian Radio and Television).
(ORF / http://orf.at - News dated 22 November 2005)

The theory of intelligent creation

The theory of “intelligent design”, or intelligent creation, has been under discussion for some time now. It was first propounded by Dr. Stephen Meyer, Director of the Discovery's Center for Science & Culture and a Professor at the Palm Beach Atlantic University of Florida, USA, in a comprehensive and peer-reviewed article published in the famous scientific weekly Nature on 9. 9. 2004. In his dissertation Dr. Meyer points to the fact that the theory of intelligent design can provide answers for just those questions that the various theories of evolution have so far been unable to resolve. Theories of evolution are still not in a position to explain how new forms of living creatures come into being (macroevolution) or how information-bearing molecules (DNA) are created in the cells. The theory of intelligent design, on the other hand, does not suffer from this inadequacy. Dr. Meyer writes in his conclusion as follows:

“An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate - and perhaps the most causally adequate - explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.”

Change of direction in the Catholic church?

Even if some are not yet prepared to believe it, the attentive observer cannot help noticing that the pontificate of Benedict XVI is beginning to make itself felt, at any rate in Austria. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s remarks in the NYT rekindled discussion about “intelligent design”, and he was backed up by statements made by the Pope. This was the first shot. The Pope then gave an address on an ad limina visit to the Austrian bishops, in which he did not shrink from speaking plainly. KATH.NET documents the media response to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to the Austrian bishops in the following terms:

- “Pope calls Austrian bishops to fall in line”
- “Pope asks for a change of direction”
- “Pope wants bishops to be more outspoken”.“

The Pope also urged Austria’s bishops not to be squeamish about putting across difficult points of doctrine, and to make their views known when necessary. This, as it appears, gave Salzburg’s Suffragan Bishop Andreas Laun, already known as a social critic, the encouragement he needed to issue some long overdue comments on the situation in Austria in a statement to KATH.NET. The disapproval he voiced was principally - but not solely - directed at Hermann Nitsch, an Austrian “artist” whose “Orgiastic Mysteries Theater”, involving slaughtered pigs and steers, has recently been allowed to perform even on the stage of Vienna’s Burgtheater (!) with the approval of Austrian politicians, and to whom these same politicians awarded the Österreichischer Staatspreis [Austrian State Prize]. Here is what Andreas Laun has to say about it:

“Hermann Nitsch has been given a State Prize. It is beyond comprehension. Whatever for? For his blasphemous texts? For effusions that spring from such a repulsive imagination that I cannot even reproduce them here as grounds for my disapproval? For his orgies and ‘liturgies of blood and guts’? Or what else can it be? People say that politicians listen to the views of the people. But is this true? (…)

They are failing to do so if they assert that homosexuals must be granted privileges to which otherwise only married couples and families are entitled. They are failing to do so when they mechanically echo the Nobel Prize Committee’s misguided award to Ms Jelinek, and then give Mr Nitsch a State Prize. Are they aware that in so doing they are taking money from people whose principal reaction to the so-called ‘art’ of Mr Nitsch is one of unmitigated disgust?”

(Extract from KATH.NET article by Suffragan Bishop Andreas Laun

Alongside these two statements, which must be seen as remarkable coming from the church in Austria, a new Vatican directive on an old problem is now also attracting attention: the document (Instruction) “On the Priesthood and Those With Homosexual Tendencies”. This states that the church cannot allow men who are practicing homosexuals, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies or are ‘supporters of gay culture’ to study for the priesthood or to enter holy orders. The issue of homosexual priests is a problem in the USA as well, where the Catholic church is having to pay out millions of dollars as a penalty for the sexual abuse by its priests of children and young people of both sexes. And now just recently a scandalous incident in Miami, Michigan, made the headlines, when a homosexual Catholic priest by the name of Andrew Dowgiert celebrated a mass for homosexuals in which he gave communion to a dog (!) - whereas the Catholic church otherwise refuses communion even to believing Christians who are Protestants.

When we look at the statement on this issue emanating from the Evangelical Reformed church in the person of State Superintendent of Kärnten (Austria) Wolfram Neumann, we do find ourselves wondering whether the Catholic church may not perhaps have some justification for its attitude, in the light of what is written in the Bible: “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (1Cor 11,27). Neumann gave his opinion in a broadcast, saying that “Homosexual partnerships are not expressions of perversity, they are life partnerships which are entered into in all seriousness and with a view to permanence.” According to the State Superintendent the Evangelical Reformed church sees same-sex partnerships as “experiments in living that must be taken seriously, from which, as is well known, the church does not withhold its blessing.”

To what extent the change of direction called for by the Pope can actually be realized in practice will depend in no small measure on the courage of the Catholic clergy worldwide. But in Austria, at any rate, the Pope’s call has not been without effect. The Austrian Cardinal we quoted above, Christoph Schönborn, has actually not been noted in the past for his fearless testifying - rather he was regarded as a somewhat timid, cautious and invariably polite dignitary of the church. It is all the more astonishing then to find this man speaking openly about faith - even if, on closer examination, it proves to be no more than a tentative approach. Schönborn defends God as the creator of the universe. But he does not do this in absolutely clear and unmistakable terms - rather he expresses it as his opinion that everything that exists is based on an intelligent plan, an “intelligent design”. Though that in itself, it must be said, is remarkable.

Equally noteworthy is the statement made by another Catholic theologian on this topic. In an interview with the journal “Die Presse” [“The Press”] published on 30.11.2005, former Professor of Dogmatics Hans Küng gave the following answer to the question whether, in the light of the above statements coming from Cardinal Schönborn, it is possible to reconcile the natural sciences with Christian faith:

(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)

(Is it impossible to reconcile the big bang theory with belief in a creator? / Interview with “Die Presse”, HK 00 2006-01-19)

“We must always clearly distinguish between the two levels. Scientific language and religious language cannot be compared with one another, any more than science and poetry. This means that the big bang theory and belief in a creator, or the theory of evolution and the creation story, are not in contradiction but they cannot be reconciled with one another either. (…) Belief in the creation adds nothing to the instrumental knowledge of the natural sciences, it does not offer any kind of additional scientific information. (…)” (H. Küng)

Austrian daily press “Die Presse” 1/19/2006 http://www.diepresse.com/

Here, now, we have just that type of theologian who over the past 500 years has repeatedly put obstacles in the way of a mutual accommodation between science and the church. It is these people who are eager at all costs “clearly to distinguish between the two levels”, and above all not to tolerate any overstepping of the limits, any contact or even any exchange of ideas with science. And yet, on the other hand, they assert that the big bang theory and belief in a creator are not contradictory. This approach rather brings to mind the familiar saying, “Wash my fur, but don’t make me wet”. So they are also quite happy to have science stay in its place, so that it does not disturb the intellectual satiety of these theologians with any new scientific theories and discoveries. Proof of this is provided Hans Küng’s following statement:

“Most natural scientists correctly dispute the claim that we can read an ‘intelligent plan by God’ into the factual, to some extent even contradictory evolution of the cosmos, life and human beings. The natural scientist must keep his knowledge within the dimensions of space and time - he would be overstepping these limits if he were to speculate about eternity. When it comes to the great questions of meaning, it is not the responsibility of the natural sciences but of philosophy, theology and finally, yes, religion. (…) If the natural scientist cannot answer these questions about the absolute beginning, he should at least take them seriously - even if he should then have to concede that only answers actually based on faith are possible, such answers as the first pages of the Bible bring to our attention.”

So here, conversely, we find it asserted that in the creation of the universe God did not have any kind of plan - so everything must have come into existence without any plan or goal. This puts Hans Küng on precisely the same level as the neo-Darwinian natural scientists, who then add the logical conclusion “Ergo, God cannot possibly exist.” And then Küng states it as his opinion that the natural scientist should kindly oblige by sticking to time and space, and leave eternity to the philosophers and theologians. This point of view is based on a world picture which may have been current a hundred years ago; but since the advent of Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity and quantum physics, time and space have become relative concepts, and a theologian should exercise greater caution in talking of them. But then, when we hear the mental and verbal contortions emanating from some of today’s theologians, they are the very last people to whom we would be willing to trust the task of explaining eternity.
When he says that in answer to questions about the absolute beginning we have to rely on faith, and then refers to the first pages of the Bible, again the two positions are mutually contradictory. The Christian faith assumes the existence of a Creator God, and recognizes, that we are not faced, on these same first pages of the Bible, with any kind of allegories which can only be accepted on the basis of faith. When we find here a report of the creation of the sun, moon and stars - that is to say, of the cosmos and our own solar system - these are clearly the categories of natural science and not those (or not only those) of theology. If the church has in the past not been able to make much of these scriptural passages, that is to be put down to the intellectual lethargy and satiety of its theologians - it certainly is not the fault of the text!

When he says that in answer to questions about the absolute beginning we have to rely on faith, and then refers to the first pages of the Bible, again the two positions are mutually contradictory. The Christian faith assumes the existence of a Creator God, and recognizes, that we are not faced, on these same first pages of the Bible, with any kind of allegories which can only be accepted on the basis of faith. When we find here a report of the creation of the sun, moon and stars - that is to say, of the cosmos and our own solar system - these are clearly the categories of natural science and not those (or not only those) of theology. If the church has in the past not been able to make much of these scriptural passages, that is to be put down to the intellectual lethargy and satiety of its theologians - it certainly is not the fault of the text!

After stating in the above passage that the cosmos came into being without any plan or aim, Professor Küng goes on to agree with the view of the Darwinists that human beings are descended from the apes, when he says:

“Since emerging from the animal kingdom, human beings have had to learn how to behave in a fully human and civilized way.”

And so here too we find ourselves wondering - rather as with the question of the Evangelical Reformed church referred to earlier - whether the Vatican may not have had a certain justification for withdrawing Professor Küng’s authorization to teach in the name of the church. And it is much the same when we consider the Austrian theologian Adolf Holl. The Catholic Chaplain and University assistant, who was removed from his teaching post, was asked the question whether “the religious-historical idea of Christianity is possible without belief in a Creator God” in an interview with Die Presse, published on 19. 01. 2006. His answer was as follows:

(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)

(Is there such a thing as Christianity without belief in a Creator God? / Interview with “Die Presse”, AH 00, 2006-01-19)

“It is perfectly feasible, would be my answer - both as a Catholic theologian and as a scientist of religion - if I am prepared to go back to the sources, that is to say, to the first 150 years after the birth of Christ. The moment I look at these sources and the various currents prevalent at the time, I find not just one form of Christianity, but at least six: not just those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but those of Thomas and Paul as well. If I then inspect these I can manage very well today, as a theologian and a scientist of religion. I can say, in a liturgical formula, that I believe in God the Almighty Father, creator of heaven and earth. But this is not a statement of the same kind as I make when I say that Australia is an island. If we do not have regard to this distinction, we get into that very dead end in which Cardinal Schönborn is stuck.” (Adolf Holl)

Austrian daily press “Die Presse” 1/19/2006 http://www.diepresse.com/

First of all, it is extremely surprising that Adolf Holl, when he “inspects” the Gospels with reference to the Creator God, supposes himself to have unearthed various different “Christianities”. But even more startling is his assertion that Christianity is “feasible” without the belief in a Creator God. And as he goes on to explain, when he prays “I believe in God … creator of heaven and earth”, this deserves about as much credit, in terms of truth content, as the promise of a fortune teller that you will have a long life. That this attitude of mind enables him to “manage very well today” cannot be doubted. All the same, he should not then continue to call himself a theologian (from the Greek theos, God, and logos, teaching), seeing that on his own admission the basis of his teaching - namely God - has patently gone missing.

The theory of evolution and the second law of thermodynamics

For centuries the Catholic church showed little interest in science, and so it has been rather poorly informed in this respect. Now Cardinal Schönborn, as a representative of the higher clergy, takes it upon himself to bridge the hostile distance between church and science (“two paths proceeding separately in parallel”) and to offer scientists something more like a common approach. And at once they are all over him, like the proverbial pack of hounds after a hare. They brand his statements as stupid and his point of view as unscientific.

And yet if we consider the facts objectively, we find that actually it is the natural scientists themselves whose evolutionary dogma of “chance and necessity” contravenes their own principle that it should be possible to reproduce the phenomena on which a scientific theory is based. The theory of evolution postulates that matter organizes itself - that is to say, life comes into being from matter and energy without any need of help from an intelligent plan or idea. But the very laws of physics - the laws of thermodynamics[1] - state that matter actually does not have any tendency to self-organization. And the phenomena behind these physical laws are - unlike the theses of the theory of evolution - capable of being reproduced at any time, as we can observe them in the world around us on a daily basis.

One such example would be an abandoned farmhouse, which many of us must have seen somewhere at some time in our lives - one that is exposed to the ravages of weather both summer and winter, and on which no maintenance work has been carried out for decades. Based on the principles of the theory of evolution, this house should be capable of constantly renewing and improving itself, based on the self-organization of the matter of which it consists. So after the lapse of a long period of time we should find ourselves presented with an intact and habitable house, one that is practically as good as new. But the true picture is very different: the house has collapsed, the walls have caved in, only a rudimentary roof remains and it is anything but a place you would consider living in. And this is just the development that the laws of physics - the laws of thermodynamics - predict: matter, left to itself, does not tend to self-organization, but rather to chaos and decay. So those scientists who believe in this kind of self-organization on the part of matter can be put in the same class as children who think that power comes out of the socket.

The presumption of the theory of evolution in trying to explain the coming into being of life as a consequence of the endogenous properties of matter itself, rather than as the consequence of an idea that has its origin outside matter, is similar to the endeavor to ascribe the authorship of the text of a book to the paper on which it is printed rather than to some external source of information. This view found support from the well-known natural scientist and Professor of Organic Chemistry, Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith, whose lectures at the Audimax of the Technical University of Vienna and in other Austrian lecture halls I myself have come to appreciate highly. Dr. Wilder-Smith is one of those very rare scientists who, as a result of their great intelligence and vast knowledge of their subject, have not only attained to deep insights into the created world, but have also come to the conviction that any natural scientist who denies the existence of God is actually giving clear evidence of his own incompetence and so quite simply disqualifying himself as a scientist. In his book “The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution” Dr. Wilder-Smith discusses this theme in comprehensive detail:

(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)

(The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution / book AEWS 00, p. 18 f)*)

The doctrine of evolution is of course a philosophy. To be specific, it is a philosophy that promises to give you “something for nothing” (free of charge, that is) - a principle that has always been popular! This is because it promises the formation and creation of order - an order of [biological] machine systems - out of disorder, without any governing idea or teleonomy [purposefulness] - in fact, “something for nothing”. It promises to bring forth the order of life spontaneously on the basis of non-directed energy (i.e. without a governing idea) out of the disorder of non-living material. It promises the formation of the most complex biological machine - for the biological cell is an unimaginably complex metabolic machine system - without being able to explain any prior know-how or idea it may have. Where in all the history of experimental science can we find a postulate for the construction of a machine out of “raw” materials, without any idea, expertise or knowledge playing a part - just on the basis of its capacity for organizing itself? Neo-Darwinism postulates the coming into being of the most sophisticated coding system for a machine that is far more complex than all the machines human beings have ever invented, just on the basis of coincidence and self-organization. Where will you find a systems engineer who attributes the development of his code and the code contents just to chance? In any other field of the natural sciences - other, that is, than in neo-Darwinian biology - a postulate like this would be flatly and immediately ruled out just on the grounds of sound common sense.

*) This extract has been taken from the book “The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution” by the natural scientist Professor Dr. A. E Wilder-Smith, Einigen, Schweiz (Schwabe & Co Verlag [Schwabe & Co Publishing House], Basel/Stuttgart 1978). Dr. Wilder-Smith has taught at the University of London, the University of Geneva, ETH Zürich [Federal Technical College, Zurich], the University of Illinois, Chicago and elsewhere. He has been a consultant to the American armed forces of NATO, with the rank of general, in connection with the problem of drug abuse, and has also been a visiting professor at various colleges of medicine in the USA and Europe. DR. A. E. WILDER-Smith

Here we have to ask ourselves how it is that the advocates of neo-Darwinian biology insist on the capacity of matter to organize itself in defiance of every principle of scientific reason, when even the laws of physics speak against it. We will find the answer to this question when we look at the alternative that is all the neo-Darwinians would otherwise have available: if there is no such thing as self-organization, and so no such thing as evolution - while on the other hand no one can deny that what is, does actually exist - the only remaining possibility is the existence of a God who has created everything. And the scientists are no less scared of that than thieves are of the light.

The basis for this attitude lies in a deep mistrust of the church on the part of the entire scientific community. A trigger for this was the historic circumstance that the church, up to the Copernican turning point (and even after it), insisted on a geocentric world picture (with the earth at the center of the universe), based on a completely unjustified appeal to the Bible - this even though the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and the Italian mathematician, physician and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1672) had both realized and demonstrated that it is not the sun that goes around the earth, but rather that the opposite is true: all the planets circle the sun and so supply a foundation for the heliocentric world picture.

Insistence on the Bible, now, is undoubtedly a good thing, but this kind of attitude should not be the result of a superficial study of Scripture which, based on a person’s own indolence and incapacity, puts the word of God as it appears in the Bible in obvious opposition to the plain reality of the visible creation. It was just this attitude on the part of the church that made Copernicus for a long time reluctant to publish his discoveries. When he finally brought out his comprehensive work “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”) on 24 May 1543, church leaders actually tried to have the publication suppressed. John Calvin (1509-1564), the Swiss Reformer, asserted that on the basis of biblical teaching it was impossible that the earth should move, and Martin Luther (1485-1546) said: “the idiot (Copernicus) will turn the whole science of astronomy upside down.” The Catholic church did in fact ban the books of Copernicus, and only recognized the scientific fact to which he had drawn attention 200 years after his death.

Some 300 years later, in 1858, the British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published the first theory of evolution based on a natural principle - namely, the principle of natural selection. This is the origin from which all modern evolutionary theories - all branches of Darwinism - are derived. And because it was supposed possible with the help of this theory to explain all that exists, Darwinism dispensed with the Creator God, and so also with the church. Creationism - that is, the belief in God as the creator of the entire universe - was then likewise branded as unscientific, and marginalized as “pseudo-science”. But in view of the fact that the evolutionists still are lacking the “links” for their theses and theories, and so have been unable to supply a scientifically watertight proof, it is actually these same Darwinists who are only able to continue investigating, discovering and cataloging what is there already, so that they turn out to be only the “free riders” of God’s creation.

The inability of such people to recognize an intelligent plan and the creative act of God in what they have discovered and investigated, both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm, is not to be put down to God’s being missing from his creation but rather to his being absent from their own misguided minds. They hate having to ascribe authorship to any kind of “higher being”, much preferring to assert that the whole universe has come into being of itself - even if this contradicts their own discoveries and teachings, like the first two laws of thermodynamics.

Now if we were to quote all the references to be found in Scripture to the Creator God and the creation of the universe, it would undoubtedly expand this document beyond all bounds. Anyone who knows the Bible at all is aware of this, and anyone who is interested need only consult his Bible. All the same, we will just bring forward a few scriptural passages here, in order to provide biblical proof that everything that exists has been created by God.

For You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created

Rev 4,11 "Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created." Rev 4,11;

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained.

Ps 8,3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; 8.4 What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Ps 8,3-4;

Ps 90,2 Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. Ps 90, 2;

Just as in Psalm 8,3 the heavens and the stars indicate the entire universe, so here too, in Psalm 90,2, the earth and the world are not being used as synonyms: “earth” refers to our planet, and “the world” to the cosmos as a whole.

In conclusion, let us once more hear what Prof. A. E. Wilder-Smith has to say, when at the end of the book we referred to above he demonstrates the untenability of the theory of evolution by taking the human brain as an illustration.

(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)

(The human brain and evolution / book AEWS 01, p. 135 ff)*)

C. Judson Herrick[2]writes as follows: “Every neuron of the cerebral cortex is ensheathed in an extremely complex tangle of the finest nerve fibers, some of which come from parts far removed. We are probably safe in assuming that most of the cortical neurons are connected, directly or indirectly, with every single cortical zone. This is the anatomical basis for the processes of cortical association. These association fibers that are linked in a mutual network constitute an anatomical mechanism which makes possible, during the activation of a single chain of cortical association, an enormous number of different functional combinations of the cortical neurons. This goes far beyond all imagined mathematical maxima that have ever been given by astronomers when measuring the distances between the stars. (…) If a million cortical nerve cells, in groups of two neurons at a time, are joined in all possible combinations, the number of different interneuronal connections that would come into existence on this basis would amount to 10^2,783,000 (a 1 followed by 2,783,000 zeroes). (8230;) From what we know of the structure of the cerebral cortex … we may conclude that the number of anatomically existing intercellular connections that are available for use in short series of cortical neurons, and that would be simultaneously stimulated by an image on the retina in the visual field, would be very much in excess of this 102,783,000 which we have proposed as a theoretically possible total number of combinations when postulating groups of just two at a time.”

For purposes of comparison, Livingston adds: “We need to remind ourselves that the total number of atoms existing in the entire universe has been estimated to be around 10^66.”

These facts show that the human cerebral cortex is a teleonomic organ of quite unimaginable complexity. Consider that the information for this cerebral cortex project is algorithmically conveyed in a language encapsulated in miniature in an egg and a sperm. Consider too that every associative neuron connection that is required for the vast associative capacity of the cerebral cortex is fixed in the form of biochemical instructions. The entire human being, and the entire cerebral cortex, have been built up on the basis of similar genetically coded instructions. All the instructions involved in this unimaginable construction project are set down in a language that would require more than 1000 volumes, each with 500 printed pages, of our own information retrieval systems (books) if printed out. But all this information is saved in the unimaginable biological minuteness of an egg and a sperm. And probably too the decay of the entire system (aging, that is to say) is likewise contained in the zygote in the form of genetically coded instructions.

If any natural scientist remains convinced that the teleonomics and the information that are needed to construct an organ like the cerebral cortex have arisen as the result of a combination of chance and natural law, either he is unacquainted with the second law of thermodynamics or he is a superstitious fellow who believes in miracles. This is because he should know, as a natural scientist, that teleonomy and intelligence are needed to build an intelligent electronic computer - because the material of the computer does not itself possess the teleonomy that is required here, and neither do natural laws.

*) This extract has been taken from the book “The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution” by the natural scientist Professor Dr. A. E Wilder-Smith. DR. A. E. WILDER-Smith

And so the scientists of today fall into the same error for which their predecessors criticized the church 500 years ago (with good reason), when the boot was on the other foot. Today’s science denies what is so patently obvious and unmistakable in every single atom that exists in the universe - God’s plan in his creation. But whereas half a millennium ago the church lacked both the intellectual caliber and the information needed, scientists today have all the information and intelligence they could possibly require to attain to this realization. So today it is not incapacity that prevents them from recognizing an intelligent plan in creation - it is just pure and simple denial.

The background to this entire complex of problems seems on the one hand to be the fact that the church, alas, is still unable to interpret the statements of Scripture correctly, and so does not know how to classify the findings of modern science; while on the other hand science sees no cause whatever to consult the statements of Scripture in connection with its work. If on the side of the church as much emphasis were to be placed on the study and interpretation of Holy Scripture as on the organization and management of church hierarchies, and if science on the other hand were not always immediately to reject everything emanating from the church root and branch, a fruitful collaboration might yet develop which would benefit both sides.

Whoever believes that the human body and the universe have come about through evolution is like someone who claims that the earth is the center of the universe and cannot revolve. Intellectually, neither are able or have the will to implement the insights at which human beings have arrived during the last 500 years.

”My religious feeling consists in humble admiration of the infinitely higher spirit that reveals itself in the little that we - with our feeble and volatile understandings - are able to grasp of reality.” (Albert Einstein)

1^st law: the law of energy conservation
In a closed system, energy can be transformed from one form into another, but it cannot be either created or destroyed.

2^nd law: the spontaneous sequence of reactions
Every change to a closed system is associated with an increase in the entropy of the system. Or alternatively - a spontaneous change to a system can only be counteracted by the input of additional energy!

3^rd law: absolute entropy at absolute zero (0º K) (Nernst's theorem)
The entropy of every substance approaches zero when the temperature, other things remaining equal, approaches zero.

Discourse 81 - Intelligent design or evolution?

(A Creator, or evolution? - the battle continues / Report, ORF [Austrian Radio Broadcast] 00, 2005-11-22)*)

The theory of intelligent creation

Change of direction in the Catholic church?

(Is it impossible to reconcile the big bang theory with belief in a creator? / Interview with “Die Presse”, HK 00 2006-01-19)

(Is there such a thing as Christianity without belief in a Creator God? / Interview with “Die Presse”, AH 00, 2006-01-19)

The theory of evolution and the second law of thermodynamics

(The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution / book AEWS 00, p. 18 f)*)

(The human brain and evolution / book AEWS 01, p. 135 ff)*)