Episode Transcript
Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
A couple of years ago, in, well, in 2019, a book was published called Darwin's God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil. And it was written by a person, Cornelius Hunter. This person worked in the area of biophysics, so he was quite well versed with the Darwin scenario, and he'd done quite a bit of research into Darwin's life and Darwin's biography and so forth, and the views that were around at that time about science.
And essentially what he discovered was, and his view was, that when Darwin was putting his ideas together to write his book on the origin of species and propose the theory of evolution, he, prior to that, had actually been studying theology.
But one of the areas that had really concerned him was that the whole problem of evil, and that God would punish evil people eternally, forever, that people would be punished forever. And I think at one stage, he points out that Darwin said, who would even want to believe in a God like that? Who would want to believe in a God that punished people forever? Forever. And I mean, forever is a long time, forever is a huge amount of time. And when you think about it, that represents a huge amount of suffering. I guess it's a reason that is used by many people today for rejecting religion.
But it was interesting that Darwin was concerned about this and it really troubled him. Now, the other thing, of course, is that Darwin thought that if a God, if a super intelligent God had made the world, why would God have made things the way he did? And so he looked at situations, such as he viewed the world as being full of evil, and like there were wasps that laid eggs inside caterpillars, and he thought, well, that must be an excruciating egg and slow death. And then there's all this waste from unhatched eggs and excess pollen and so forth.
And then there was the behaviour of animals that kill and eat each other. And we see these issues often being brought up in nature documentaries today, too, I know quite a few nature documentaries that I've seen on television seem to emphasise, and the photographers focus on one animal hunting and killing another, and portraying this as a terrible situation. And so why would God do it this way?
Hunter also points out that Darwin, for example, and the book was by, as I said, Cornelius Hunter, Hunter pointed out that Darwin, for example, cited I think it was in chapter 14 of his book, Origin of Species, that there were birds that had webbed feet and spent relatively little time in the water. Why would God design such a creature? What was the point of the webbed feet.
And of course, other people have often pointed out supposed flaws. Perhaps people have discussed why is the eye arranged the way it is? And so forth, and the thumb of the panda bear, which the late geologist Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in his book. And so in terms of all this evil, why would God design all these scenarios? Why was there so much waste? Why was there so much pain and suffering?
And so essentially Darwin, it would seem, argued to himself and others. And we concluded, I guess, that nature can't be the result of God's direct design. You know, Darwin suggested, well, maybe God did breathe in the original breath of the first living creature, because Darwin offers no explanation of course, as to how life started, and then, you know, nature did the rest.
So the bottom line that comes from this is that nature has no moral imperative. And it's interesting then that Darwin decided from this, that then there was essentially no moral imperative then for man. And we can see that this line of thought that arose from Darwin's thinking and rejecting God, that why was there a God either that if people didn't do as he said, they were tortured forever in hell, or else why did God design things with all these flaws and allow all this evil? And so the conclusion was of course, and Darwin provided this, provided this mechanical model to explain life on earth through supposed mutations that produced all these new types of creatures and their natural selection survival of the fittest.
Again, when you think about, it's a very cruel way of eliminating things, survival of the fittest. And that led to this perhaps moral view that, again, the idea is that there is no this sense morality. People can act out of impulse and necessity.
And it's interesting as I look around and see the changes in the world that has taken place, particularly as Darwin's theory of evolution has become more dominant in our education system. And in my view, as I look back over from the past 70 or so years that I can remember back the change in the number of people attending church where when I was a small boy, most people went to church in western countries. My understanding is we had religion.
The stories of Jesus and so forth were taught in school. And it was a society that I felt was very safe in. Just a couple of days ago, I was at a museum type of place, Timbertown in New South Wales. And there were pictures there of what life was like. And while life was harsher, there was a sense of community support. Children felt safe. I mean, even when I was a child, we walked to and from school perhaps a mile or so. I knew lots of other children that did that. They were relatively safe.
Whereas today people are very afraid of their children walking down the street by themselves. And parents go to a lot of trouble to make sure there's a parent or relative that is there to pick the child up from school or meet the school bus, this sort of thing.
There are so many aspects that I think I was just reading about one of the things that were taught in the schools that the children came, they were very respectful to the teacher. There was this teaching of respect and you certainly wouldn't speak back to a teacher.
Whereas as I talk to many teachers today about the major problems in the school, of no discipline, of children swearing and speaking back at teachers, and not doing as they're told, of fighting, of bullying in schools. It's very different to what I remember. And also we've seen associated with this, the breakdown in marriage.
I was only talking with a friend a couple of days ago and this person has a very senior position in a government education department looking in terms of managing staff that are managing children with problems and pointed out the number of children that are growing up in a home where there is no father or the father's in jail and the mother is on drugs and the terrible situation that these children are in. Well, I knew very little situations like that when I was a boy.
So I can see there's massive changes in society as people have turned away from God. And again, I think, how justifiable is this? And maybe we could look at some of these things.
So I know that many church, many christian churches today teach this concept of eternal punishment. And I know there are texts in the Bible that when you look at just the reading, the way it's read, it talks about they will be punished forever and ever sort of thing. But my understanding is that these were phrases that were used that just represented something that was eternal forever, but not punishment forever, but it's just that they would perish forever. And I think some of the texts that counter this, if we look at the words of Jesus himself in John 3:16, I'll just open the Bible here now.
And we read this very important verse here as John comments from what Jesus taught in John chapter 3, verse 16, says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. But notice that "not perish". When something perishes, it's ended, it's finished.
And here we have the picture of a loving God that doesn't want that to happen. A loving God who himself suffered to draw attention to the consequences of sin, suffered on the cross publicly, to draw attention to that and to point out the fact that that's how far God was wanting to go to save us from missing out on eternal life and having that relationship with him. So as I read through the Bible, the whole Bible seems to be this account of how God is calling out and trying to reach people who have turned away from him.
And I guess another thing is we talk about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the evil that was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's interesting, there's a passage in Jude, in the Bible, in Jude chapter 1. Well, there's only 1 chapter in Jude, verse 7, where Jude points out that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise lacked it morally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Now the thing is, as we read this here, we know, and of course Jude would have known too, because that was written after the death of Christ, that Sodom and Gomorrah didn't exist anymore. They were gone. So there's no eternal fire there.
And we know that the fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah came down. It was from God, from God who is eternal, and it destroyed them. And so it seems that these are expressions that God will destroy the wicked, the people that reject him, the people that destroy the earth.
There's another passage in Revelation, chapter 11. I'll just open it here now, quickly, right at the end of Revelation chapter 11. And it talks about the nations rage, but thy wrath came and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.
And so I think that paints really just in a simple verse that's in the book Revelation, the last book of the Bible, and in chapter 11, verse 18. I'll just read it again. The nations raged, but thy wrath came and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and for those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.
And I think to me that summarises a whole lot of things. We know as we read the Bible, that sin came into the earth and sin entered the earth. There was an adversary, there was a war, there was a being that was opposed to God and he came out to get at God by destroying and as much as he could of the little paradise that God had created here on earth.
And us humans who were made by God in his image as a people, as beings that were to have a special relationship with God. And we have that, that this evil adversary who wanted to be like God, who wanted to be in control of all the universes and everything, came to this little earth and got a foothold in there, tempted Eve and that through that, evil spread throughout the world. But the message of the Bible seems quite clear that God is going to put an end to this, put an end to the evil.
If we read in Revelation, in many places in the book of Isaiah, and so forth, that God is going to recreate the world again. And those people that choose to be good, they want to be good people, they want to be with God, they will be recreated again. And that's the eternal life that God promises.
And those other folk that reject God, they perish, they don't suffer forever. And so it's just a way. But I guess the destruction is forever.
The point is not that they're suffering forever. The point is that it's final when they're destroyed. It is forever.
And mind you, that's not that far different from the atheist view of life. When you think about the atheist view of life is that we somehow evolve. We've somehow reached the states of evolution where we are now as humans and we live for a little while here as human, and then we die and that's the end.
And essentially that's not far wrong from God's picture, except that there is a judgement where everyone has the opportunity to see that God was real. So it's interesting, and I find it very interesting that it was this misconception of what God was like that has led to this theory of evolution, that this view of Darwin, that he couldn't see the love of God in scriptures, he couldn't see the beauty of God in nature, which is what I see. I see so much beauty in nature and I also see so much beauty in humanity.
I see people doing so much acts of kindness and self sacrifice, of helping others, of going out of their way to help and show kindness. And we see so much account of that where a disaster does happens and people respond and work so hard to try and alleviate disaster, to rescue people. Scientists and doctors work so hard to develop new medicines and these sort of things. But at the same time we see people fighting and killing. We read about domestic violence, the massive increase in domestic violence. We read about the massive increase in the consumption of alcohol, particularly during the Covid-19 crisis as people turn to alcohol for help.
But then just yesterday in the major Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, I read this article about how alcohol, the increased consumption of alcohol, had promoted increased domestic violence throughout our country. And I'm sure that's the case in many other countries as well. We know we have the statistics that domestic violence is 15 times higher in households where the father or husband or a person is often drunk.
And we see these really bad things that are happening. And this is a huge contrast there. So we can see there's a contrast, a definite contrast between good and evil, but we can look and see the evil. And the Bible explains the origin of this evil. And it makes so much sense. So much of the Bible makes sense.
And I thought it's really revealing in Hunter's book, Darwin's God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil, that Hunter points this out. He's done the research through Darwin's biography and the background of the time when Darwin lived and people were looking for an excuse to get away from this God that was going to punish people eternally. Well, that's not the picture I get from the Bible.
But unfortunately, I see that many, I think christian churches teach this, that the creator God, the God that created all this beauty and the whole concept of love that we have, and that we can have for one another, that this God, same God, would consciously have people punished forever. Forever. No respite, no end to it.
It doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit the description in the Bible. And those few passages where it just talked about there I think we'll find, I've had explained to me, they were figures of speech at the time. Just like we talk about it rains cats and dogs. Well, it doesn't actually rain cats and dogs. And we know it doesn't rain cats and dogs. It just mean it's raining heavy and there are lots of very heavy rain.
And we know that there are lots of expressions like that in language that are used. But when we look at the overall picture and context, we can see that John points out, it's just that God doesn't want us to perish. In other words, die. When something perishes, it's the end of it. It's not alive, it doesn't feel. It's totally broken up and destroyed. And that's what happens at the end too, of those that choose to not follow Jesus. And that's why it's so important to spread this good news.
And I think that it's so important too for people that are listening to this programme, if you have an image of God, that God. If I don't follow God, I'm going to be destroyed forever. That's not God. That's not the true God. And I would really encourage you to read your Bible through, to read the Bible through and get the picture of God, and see the picture that God, all the time is trying to go out of His way to call people back to Him. He doesn't want to have people suffering forever. He wants to put an end to suffering and pain. He wants to have people enjoying a wonderful relationship with Him and living in lives that are pleasurable. And that's why the original garden of Eden was called the Garden of pleasure.
And I find it fascinating that the theory of evolution was developed because of this wrong image of God, that Darwin and other people at the time had this wrong image of God that was being taught by the christian church at that time, many of the christian churches. And this is a totally wrong picture of God. And I think it's so important to spread this news that God is a God of love.
We read in one John, chapter 4, God is love, and we read then in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, where Paul describes what love is, really love. Love is self sacrificing. And these are the pictures of what God is like.
God shows us what He is like through the life of Jesus, the compassion that He had. This is the picture of God that we need to take to the world. And it's very interesting that the evolutionary model that has led to and supported such ideologies as Marxism and so forth, that that in itself has led to the massive destruction of people that didn't comply.
And I find it quite fascinating today that people, that there are certain topics that you can't speak out on, and evolution is one. You can't criticise evolution now, or you're really sort of called names. And yet the theory itself, as I've pointed out in many times on this programme, is not supported by science anymore.
And really, the whole theory, that concept that mutations can produce new body parts is totally impossible. Evolution cannot produce new body parts. Sure, evolution can produce changes and we can have loss of the code that produces changes, but we can't produce anything new.
So, the whole concept of Darwin's theory now fails in terms of science. And you persist to be taught it's just an atheistic theory. So it's so important that the message gets out to people that God is a God of love.
And I would like to encourage everybody listening on your Facebook pages to talk about this and to spread the word that God is love, and also spread the word about these programmes and the programmes that are on 3ABN television, that are on 3ABN radio that are emphasising this.
And remember, if you want to relisten to this programme, you just google 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the listen button.
And also, too, I put out a book, The Big Argument: Does God Exist? And in this book, the whole issue of the problem of evil is dealt within one of the chapters by a top theologian.
You've been listening to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton. Have a great day. You've been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia radio.
