One sign of wisdom is that the more you learn, the more aware you become of how little you actually know. Sadly, this is not often the case. As a species, we tend to enjoy the feeling of possessing knowledge, especially when we feel we have greater quantities of it than others. As Paul tells us in1 Corinthians 8:1, "...Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies." Therefore, the more we learn, the closer we feel to omniscience.
It cannot be reasonably disputed that humanity today is more knowledgeable than our ancestors. We are capable of amazing feats they could only have dreamed of. The science that would have benefitted them for their very survival, we play with for fun. Even the very device upon which I am writing this article is conclusive proof that we are, at least in some regards, far more advanced than our predecessors.
Ironically, it is the Christian faith that made all of this possible. Any competent historian will tell you that science has its roots in the Christian faith, and in particular the "Protestant" Reformation. However, many atheists, particularly of the Evolutionist persuasion, have become so puffed up by Western science that they believe God has served his purpose, and we no longer have need of Him.
This kind of atheist will often talk about what they call the "God of the gaps" argument, which is often further reduced to just "God done it". That is, supposedly, when Christians see a gap in our scientific knowledge, we just credit it to God, and give up searching for a more satisfactory answer.
But there is a flaw in this mindset, and one which Christians actually recognise. We can almost agree with, for example, Neil deGrasse Tyson, when he says "If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come at the problem." (1).
The main problem here is the category error. As Sir William Bragg said, "From religion comes a man's purpose; from science, his power to achieve it. Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hand are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped." (2). The difference is as large as the difference between Henry Ford and a quadricycle. It is asinine to claim that Henry Ford is an ever-receding pocket of mechanical ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on. The who, why, and, to some degree, how, are not scientific questions.
In much the same way, when we look out at God's creation, we might have a billion questions about how it works, and even how it was formed. We might look out at the Grand Canyon, for example, and ask, was it like that when God said "...“Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”..." (Genesis 1:9), or was there some point in history when this canyon was something else entirely? And then an Evolutionist comes along and says "well, with a little bit of water, and a lot of time...". And of course, a Creationist would contradict him and say "no, with a lot of water and a little bit of time", and the Evolutionist would just fall back to the fortress of consensus because they know they'll lose that particular argument every time.
Simply put, God is not a theory. He isn't a guess. He isn't some campfire story that got out of control. God is the Creator of all that you see, and all that you don't. You may well come to understand His creation, and are indeed encouraged to. This is precisely why the field of science was developed, and why the overwhelming majority of early scientists were Christians who saw their studies as an act of worship. But to assume that the more you understand the creation, the less you need to acknowledge the Creator, is as silly as pretending the Wright Flyer evolved from a child's kite.
Far too often, this kind of argument is misinterpreted as the "God of the gaps" argument. It isn't a matter of Christians looking at the universe, asking atheists "how did that come about?", and concluding that God did it because they can't answer. It's more like "how else could it have come about?" If you walk along the beach and find a short poem written in the sand, it's possible that a crab and a seagull had a bit of a skirmish there, but it's significantly more likely someone wrote the poem. How else could it have got there?
But of course, atheists think they've found their "how else". The Big Bang. Evolution. Eons of time, chance, and natural processes, supposedly, formed the amazing world in which we live, and now that we have (suppoedly) closed that particular gap in our knowledge, we have no further need of God to fill it.
But this is quite different from discovering the natural process that causes storms, eliminating the need to believe in Zeus. With Evolution, most, if not all of the arguments are philosophical. Ironically, many of them are "Evolution of the gaps" arguments.
An extremely popular example is vestigial organs. As Laura Spinney summarised it in 2008, "Vestigial organs are parts of the body that once had a function but are now more-or-less useless. Probably the most famous example is the appendix, though it is now an open question whether the appendix is really vestigial. The idea that we are carrying around useless relics of our evolutionary past has long fascinated scientists and laypeople alike." (3).
This is an incredibly common argument for Evolution, and I recently debated an Evolutionist who, after getting very angry that "consensus" wasn't an argument I was willing to accept, gave me three examples of vestigial organs. He said:
"1. First vestigial structure we'll go for Palmaris longus. What it does to my knowledge is provide a slight increase to grip strength. A muscle that is so useless that about 14% of people are born without it. Can't get much more vestigial than some people not having and it's such a non issue that they don't know.
2. Muscles to move your ear. Once again, all it does is move the ear very slightly. And also, many people don't have it. In a form in which it was a stronger muscle, this would be useful for moving the ear to change listening direction without moving the head. Today, it's only good for a party trick.
3. Last one we'll go for is wisdom teeth. Our ancestor used these teeth the same way they use most teeth in that area (near the back of the mouth). But with the shrinking of the jaw size that we got, there's not much room for it in us anymore, to the point that it's commonly harmful. And once again, some people are born without them."
I want to note a key phrase in his statement: "What it does to my knowledge is...". This represents a double problem, both in his argument, and in the argument as a whole. First, he is arguing from his own personal ignorance. Second, the argument itself is based on biological ignorance.
As late as 1895, it was believed that there were no less than 180 vestigial organs in the human body alone. According to Horatio Hacket Newman, this is "...sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities." (4). But then time went on, scientists did their thing, and we now know that the actual number of useless structures in the human body is zero.
But surely that can't be true? Didn't this person just list three? This represents a larger problem with Evolution as a whole. As slow as the scientific community is to catch up with the truth, that's how slow the laity are to catch up with the scientific community. As the aforementioned Laura Spinney notes, "...these days many biologists are extremely wary of talking about vestigial organs at all. This may be because the subject has become a battlefield for creationists and the intelligent design lobby, who argue that none of the items on Wiedersheim’s original list are now considered vestigial, so there is no need to invoke evolution to explain how they lost their original functions." (5)
Even this statement gives the game away. "...there is no need to invoke evolution to explain how they lost their original functions." To really illustrate what's going on here:
When the list of vestigial organs was still 180 organs long, we used to
"...invoke evolution..."
Evolution...
...to explain how they lost their original functions."
...of the gaps.
The gap is now closed! Evolution, once based on biological ignorance, is no longer needed because we are no longer biologically ignorant! Every one of those organs is known to have function, even if we aren't 100% sure what that is yet.
The Evolutionist in my example cited three supposedly vestigial organs: The palmaris longus, ear muscles, and wisdom teeth.
Even lacking specifics, both muscles can be responded to with the same response: Muscles operate on a "use it or lose it" kind of system. If you don't use a muscle, it degenerates. This is called "atrophy", and it's why you need to be consistent when going to the gym. But "vestigial" muscles are not significantly atrophied. This, alone, indicates that they are being used, even if it's not immediately obvious what that use is.
As for wisdom teeth, this, ironically, comes down to the development of modern science, at least in part. Our modern, Western diet consists of many heavily processed foods, which changes how we chew it, and thus how the jaw develops. Key evidence for this is that less technologically developed societies are not as affected by problems with the wisdom teeth as we are.
The lifestyle factor alone is a good explanation for many "vestigial" organs, as well as the related "bad design" argument. It's not that anything in our bodies is truly useless, or poorly designed, it's that it's being used very differently, and we don't fully understand the implications of the changes we have made to our environment. It's actually quite arrogant.
But then, that is rather the point, isn't it? Pride is the very sin that got Satan kicked out of Heaven, and Adam kicked out of Eden. We had the cheek to rebel against God because we thought our way is better. God just doesn't want us to know what He knows. Or I suppose, if you really want to put an atheistic spin on it, it's those stupid Christians who don't want you to know the secrets of the universe... So we make up the most asinine origins stories we can imagine. And how do we justify these stories? With our ignorance of biology. With the Evolution of the gaps argument. The self same argument atheists scoff at when they perceive us to be using it, this is what they use to defend their deeply held conviction that they are descended from an ape.
But as Darwin himself said, "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (6). This is perhaps the wisest thing he ever said, recognising the implications of his religion. If we are truly animals, we have no real reason to assume we are more philosophically capable than they are.
But what if we truly are the image of God on Earth? Suddenly, we have been created to "...Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Genesis 1:28). It makes sense that we may trust our reasoning abilities, for the same reason you might trust your clock to tell you the time, rather than keep pointing you North. We may, therefore, cast off the one truly useless vestige of our ancestral past: The pride that set us against God in the first place.
But of course, that wouldn't be enough. We've gone too far. We've sinned against Him, and the wages of sin is death. His solution? Well He walked among us, physically and verifiably. Of course, our pride was high in those days too. We hung Him on a cross, where He died. But this was His intention. He wasn't dying in defeat, but in victory over the very sin that separates us from Him. When He died, He took the punishment we deserved. But then He rose again, earning us eternal life, a gift He gives freely to everyone who believes in Him. Those who refuse, unfortunately, are consigned to a fate worse than Evolution.
References
1. Tyson, Neil deGrasse, The Moon, the Tides and why Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Colbert's God, The Science Network, January 20th 2011 (link)
2. Bragg, Sir William Henry - The World of Sound: Six Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution (link)
3. Spinney, Laura - Five things humans no longer need, New Scientist, May 19th 2008 (link)
4. Darrow, Clarence and William J. Bryan. (1997). The World's Most Famous Court Trial: The Tennessee Evolution Case Pub. The Lawbook Exchange
5. Spinney, Laura - Vestigial organs: Remnants of evolution, New Scientist, May 14th 2008 (link)
6. Darwin, Charles - Letter to William Graham, 1881