If evolution is true then, according to Jesus, it is impossible to inherit eternal life.
On one occasion a smart person asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
We will see Jesus’ answer. But note first that his answer will make sense only if a person who can inherit eternal life also possesses certain non-material attributes of their person. We will find that Jesus’ answer makes no sense if evolution is true and we are merely material products of natural processes.
According to the naturalistic creation story that includes evolution by natural selection we, like rocks, rivers, and stars consist of nothing more than atoms arranged just so. There is no reason for our “just so” arrangement; nature merely took its inevitable course with the atoms flung out from the Big Bang. Some became rocks, others water, other stars, and others human beings.
If we are matter arranged by natural processes over time, as evolution holds, we possess no immaterial, or nonmaterial aspects to our being. All is matter cobbled together over time by meaningless and purposeless processes. Earth, wind, fire, and human beings: all meaningless atom arrangements here today and gone tomorrow.
By definition, therefore, if evolution is true human beings do not have a soul. A soul is, if anything, an immaterial thing having no atoms in its make up. And in a related concept human beings have no heart, which is understood by all people not infected by evolutionary thinking as akin to the soul. More troublesome is the fact that, if evolution is true, human beings have no mind. All we have is a brain made of atoms, and a mind, if anything, is an immaterial illusion.
According to Wikipedia, the soul is “the incorporeal essence of a living being.”
And, “incorporeal” means “lacking material form or substance.” Evolutionary theory permits no such essence. We also do not have a heart in the sense used in the Bible: The heart of man as described in the Bible is primarily a spiritual organ that drives man’s behavior. And, as mentioned, we do not have a nonmaterial mind; the human mind in evolutionary theory is; “[l]ike many other natural wonders,” according to evolutionist Daniel C. Dennett, “something of a bag of tricks, cobbled together over the eons by the foresightless process of evolution by natural selection.”
Consider now Jesus’ answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”
Does Jesus deny science? Is Jesus deluded? Is Jesus lying? Is Jesus a religiously motivated lunatic?
If evolutionary theory is true, the answers are yes, maybe, yes, and probably.
Consider these actual answers from an evolutionists’ perspective: “In sharp contrast to popular opinion, the current scientific consensus rejects any notion of soul or spirit as separate from the activity of the brain. This is what Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, called “The Astonishing Hypothesis.” In Crick’s words, ‘You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.’ Reflecting on what he calls the scientific image of persons, the philosopher Owen Flanagan stressed that we ‘need to demythologize persons by rooting out certain unfounded ideas from the perennial philosophy. Letting go of the belief in souls is a minimal requirement. In fact, desouling is the primary operation of the scientific image.’”
The “scientific image of persons”? Are we to be jettison all our instinctual and experiential notions of existence to be subject to an image produced by science? Which science? Whose science?
But what if Jesus is Lord? Might he have first-hand knowledge about the true “image of persons”?
Either Jesus or evolutionists such as Francis Crick is denying science. Or is deluded. Or lying. Or is a religiously motivated lunatic.
Who are you going to believe if you wish to inherit eternal life?
(C) 2023 Creation Reformation
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