Hillsong’s Marty Sampson surprised followers by announcing that he was “genuinely losing my faith.” He listed a variety of reasons for doing so, including that “science keeps piercing the truth of every religion.”
But that isn’t true. In an article entitled “Giving Up Darwin,” David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University, has advocated for a scientific theory known as intelligent design. He says that when he looks at the world and the intricacies and the details of its creation, he has to acknowledge that Charles Darwin was wrong. There is an intelligence behind our physical world that cannot be explained by the theory of evolution.
For a scientist, it was a bold conclusion. In the documentary, “No Intelligence Allowed,” host Ben Stein interviews a variety of science-based academics that have had their careers ruined over such a dangerous statement. Intelligent design is often too connected to the idea of religion and God for some. But while Dr. Gelernter doesn’t make the leap to religion and laments at the loss of Darwin’s groundbreaking idea, he acknowledges that science does not back up Darwin’s theory.
He cites a book entitled Darwin’s Doubt, which scientifically debunks the core of evolution and is written by Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design think tank in Seattle, Washington. Specifically, Dr. Gelernter mentioned that the argument for Cambrian life, ancient animals considered millions of years old, as the strongest evidence for intelligent design. According to evolutionary science, there should be some pre-Cambrian life, but there isn’t. It’s like one day there was suddenly life and before that nothing.
In his article, Gelernter writes: “But those predecessors of the Cambrian creatures are missing. Darwin himself was disturbed by their absence from the fossil record … The Cambrian explosion has been unearthed, and beneath those Cambrian creatures their Precambrian predecessors should have been waiting—and they weren’t. In fact, the fossil record as a whole lacked the upward-branching structure Darwin predicted.”
Despite the lack of evidence, scientists still push this evolutionary theory down the throats of young people across the country every year. They treat it like a fact, instead of an outdated and inaccurate theory that doesn’t account for the reality of scientific discovery.
While Dr. Gelernter believes in the higher likelihood of intelligent design, i.e. God, over evolution, he is hesitant to embrace religion or acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God. After all, if there is a God or an intelligent creator of some sort, why do humans still suffer in this life? It’s a legitimate question that Gelernter and even many Christians struggle to answer.
Towards the end of the piece, Dr. Gelernter’s states: “An intelligent designer who interferes repeatedly poses an even harder problem of explaining why he chose to act when he did. Such a cause would necessarily have some sense of the big picture of life on earth. What was his strategy? How did he manage to back himself into so many corners, wasting energy on so many doomed organisms? … What was his purpose? And why did he do such an awfully slipshod job? Why are we so disease prone, heartbreak prone, and so on? An intelligent designer makes perfect sense in the abstract. The real challenge is how to fit this designer into life as we know it.”
Dr. Gelernter’s questions are beautifully poised and truly get to the heart of an issue that so many people struggle with.
Author Robert Velarde put it like this, “God knows best and, as such, He knows that our world is the best way to reach the best possible world. Yes, there will be evil and suffering along the way. We can rejoice with the apostle Paul when he wrote, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’” (Romans 8:18).
He continued, “Considering the evil in the world, does God really care about us? Not only does He care, but He cares enough to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for us. Because of God’s great love and sacrifice, we now have a way to be reconciled with Him through Christ. This does not mean that we will no longer suffer in this world, but it does mean that we will spend eternity with God. There will come a day when God ‘will wipe every tear from’ our eyes and, ‘There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things’ will pass away (Revelation 21:4).
As Christians, we should rejoice when someone like Dr. Gelernter sees that through the theory of evolution and marvels at the beauty and details of God’s creation. While he has yet to embrace the Christian faith or any other religious identity, he’s definitely asking the right questions and it appears like he’s seeking real answers. Hopefully, other scientists will take his reasoning into account and maybe a greater number of impressionable minds will be shielded from dogmas of Darwinism and evolution.
Perhaps Dr. Gelernter should also share his reasoned and scientifically based conclusions with Marty Sampson of Hillsong. As the creator of the world and science, God isn’t afraid of a little questioning.
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