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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Pocket watches make bad compasses


In The Rugrats Movie, Tommy Pickles is gifted a pocket watch by his father. He and his friends then get lost in the woods. As toddlers, they have a very limited understanding of the world, and a very active imagination, and so Tommy, pocket watch in hand, proceeds to follow the clock, leading his gang... in circles around a tree.

This is a great illustration of the argument from reason. Put simply, you can't assume a thing does what it wasn't designed to do. You especially can't assume it does that thing well.

In the Evolutionary worldview, the brain wasn't designed at all. It's not just that it wasn't designed with the purpose of intelligent thought, it wasn't designed. Therefore, believing your brain is capable of assessing truth claims is actually less logical than trusting a clock, which was at least designed for a purpose, to tell you which direction to go.

There is one exception in that, according to Evolution, traits which help us survive get passed on to the next generation, and so it is conceivable that the human brain can correctly assess truth claims if assessing that truth claim helps us make more babies. But even then, false beliefs can sometimes also be effective. If, for example, I believe the earth is flat, and so it would be dangerous to swim too far out to sea lest I fall off, I'm still going to survive because my belief would stop me from swimming too far out to sea and drowning. Thus, even a true belief is not essential to survival, meaning the human brain does not need to be capable of correctly assessing truth claims in an Evolutionary worldview.

We actually see this in the fact that, with the sole exception of angels (which Evolutionists tend not to believe in anyway), there are no other creatures capable of reasoning like we are. Not even our supposed "closest relatives" are capable of reasoning as we are. This lead even Charles Darwin to ask "would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" Obvious answer: Nope. So why should we believe humans are any better at reasoning than animals? Even some humans are better at reasoning than others.


So we see that, really, Evolution cannot be reasonable because it removes the very foundation for reasoning. But what of Christianity? Interestingly, Christianity, in its purest form, is the only religion that fully supports the idea that man is capable of reasoning. Other religions, like Islam, posit that God is the best of deceivers. Even fake forms of Christianity, like Catholicism, erase the foundation for reason by claiming that the Church is a higher authority even than the very word of God. But Christianity, in its purest form, posits that God created mankind with the ability to reason. Intelligent thought is both commended and commanded by the God whom we believe is omniscient.

And that's how science itself came to be. It came not from atheism, but from Christianity. The philosophy of experimental science began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.


But don't take my word for it. Indeed, you can't, because with the exception of the first two sentences in the previous paragraph, those are not my words. These are the words of Evolutionary Anthropologist Loren Eilsley, who wrote those words in his book Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It.

The title alone should tell you that Eilsley wasn't a Creationist seeking to convince people to reject Evolution. He was simply being honest about the origins of science. The Christian origins of science. It is no coincidence that the Scientific Revolution coincided with the Christian Reformation. When people returned to God's word and stopped relying on mythology, they started doing the same in their investigations of His creation. The result was a better understanding of that creation.


But God didn't design our reasoning abilities just so we could understand His creation, but so that we could come to know Him through it, as well as through His word. Sadly, we are a rebellious species. Every single one of us has sinned against Him, earning us a fate none of us really want. Thankfully, none of us have to take it either, because God knew we were going to rebel before He even made us, and so He had a plan to redeem us before He even made us. He sent His Son, Jesus, to be born of a virgin, live as one of us, and knowing no sin Himself, He died a sinner's death in our stead. And He rose again. All it takes to receive forgiveness of our sins is to confess Him as Lord, and believe in His resurrection. There is no reason to turn down this one time offer.

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