unPHILtered: The Way I See It

by Phil Robertson

  It’s all from either total chance or purposeful design. Think about it. Putting an oak tree inside an acorn? With all the life cycle built in, the design for leaves, the DNA to direct the photosynthetic process, and the vascular tissue to transport fluids throughout the tree? Then there’s the fact that trees give off oxygen for us to breathe, and they provide us with wood. Are you kidding?

  Some have argued that it’s “unscientific” to suggest that intelligent design is present. Really? So what’s so “scientific” about saying it all happened by chance? In all of human history we’ve never seen any complex functioning entity that was created by swishing water or a windstorm. A house has a complex design. A TV has a complex design. A saltshaker or duck call has a design. Even something as simple as a golf tee was designed! Look at the spiral helix construction of a DNA molecule and tell me that’s not design! Look at your eye! Good grief, Jack! It screams design! Design by definition is the result of planning—the opposite of chance. And I see design in every aspect of creation, right down to the atom, for crying out loud!

  The first words of the Bible in Genesis 1:1–2 are as follows: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” That’s the first statement in Scripture. It’s either true or false. I believe it to be true. I believe the Bible is a historical narrative given by the infallible Creator to humanity. In many ways, the Bible is a love letter to humankind, and it explains the reality in which we live. The answer to every question in life is found in the Bible.

  And then there’s the question of how much time passed in verses one and two. It says “created” and “was hovering.” Those words indicate action and time but don’t say how much. Was it an instant? Maybe. Or was the amount of time much longer? Possibly. I think people make a mistake when they make the Bible say things it doesn’t say. We do not know how much time the process of the creation of matter took in verse one. The Bible doesn’t say. Genesis 1:1–2 is not dated. The days of Genesis 1, whatever they were, had not yet started. So I’m leaving it at that. Time means nothing to an infinite God who is not constrained by time. We’ve made many assumptions about the amount of time the creation took, but we don’t know for sure, so let’s not yell at each other about it. The primary message of Genesis chapter 1 is not “how long” or “when.” It’s “what” and “Who.” “What” is that this all has a beginning, and “Who” is God, the Creator.

  The opening statement in the Bible is about the creation of matter. That’s the first big problem the atheists and secularists have. They can’t explain the origin of matter. There is no physical cause to explain it. Yet, we know that something does not come from nothing. (And don’t jump into quantum mechanics or strings or other dimensions. Those are all still a something.)

  Secular scientists pretty much assert that the universe is fourteen or fifteen billion years old. They say this because the universe is observed to be rapidly moving apart. Envision a ripple on a pond. When you see the ever-widening circles from a ripple, you know that moments before some event caused the ripple. Based on the distance of the ripples and the rate of their expansion, you can approximate when the event happened. That’s what the “Big Bang” theory is all about. Matter—the galaxies—is moving apart at a very rapid speed. So some time in the past, something very dramatic happened. Boom! A couple of questions are obvious. What blew up? And where did it come from? Science can’t answer that. But it is obvious there was a “First Cause.”

  Here’s the catch. Matter cannot make itself from nothing. You can throw out theories all day, but in the end the bottom line is that there is no physical process by which matter can come from absolutely nothing. That would violate the laws of physics we use every day. The infinitely teeny speck of a proton or singularity that expanded (causing the Big Bang) is still something. The Big Bang does not explain the First Cause. Who or what made it? The laws of physics do not preclude a nonphysical entity—an entity not bound by the laws of physics—from operating. That, my friend, is God—a spiritual, nonphysical entity not bound by the laws of physics, Who operates in ways we cannot comprehend—the Creator.

  On the first day, God created light. Scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day that was used in the original text means a period of time. It can mean a day as we know it or it can mean an indefinite period of time. That’s not the issue I’m discussing. I’m discussing a chronological order that we observe in the record of the earth. And it was very orderly and logical.

  Genesis 1:3–5 says, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” God called the light “day,” and we still call it that, and He called the darkness “night,” and we still call it that. We still refer to the start of light each day as “morning” and the beginning of darkness each day as “evening.”

  On the second day, God created the sky. According to Genesis 1:6–8, “God said, ‘Let there be a vault [expanse] between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault ‘sky.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.”

  On the third day, according to Genesis 1:9–10, God said, “ ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good.”

  So in the beginning Earth was a big ball of water, and then here comes the ground. The land comes out of the water, and the sky is lifted above the seas. For my money, it could not have happened without a Guiding Hand!

  There is an extreme amount of scientific evidence to indicate that water covered Earth several billion years ago (as scientists date it). The continents didn’t exist, and scientists say there was a big mass of water that covered the surface of the Earth. When you’re flying in a jet over Arizona, you can look down out your window and see evidence that water covered the desert a long time ago. There are sediment layers visible on the walls of canyons and deep trenches that were caused by the presence of a sea that was there at one time. We’ve discovered fossils of fish and other sea creatures in the rocks of the Grand Canyon and other locations. It’s a desert now, but there’s plenty of evidence that there was a lot of water there at one time.

  The Spirit of God was hovering, and He waited until the planet was right to introduce life. He waited for the correct rotation of Earth, the correct distance of Earth from the sun and moon. We all know that the distance of Earth from the sun just “happens” to be the right distance for water to remain a liquid as needed and for our climate to be livable. If the sun were too close, we’d burn up; a little farther out, and we’d freeze. It’s just right. Not only is the distance precise, but the ratio of land to water is critical for the planet’s temperature balance to work (land and water absorb and release heat at different rates, so the ratio of land to water is extremely important). And there’s more. Where the continents are located is also critical. The Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern Hemisphere, and that is important to the global temperature. And then there’s the spin rate—critical again. Oh yeah, there’s the tilt of our axis at 23.5 degrees off the vertical. Critical. So you see, there are many design features that have to all happen on the right planet at the right distance from the sun for our temperatures and weather to balance. I see a lot of design! Don’t you?

  When the time was right, God introduced plants and animals to Earth and then humans—in that order. Genesis 1:11–13 says, “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it
was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.” God created the vegetation because the animals and humans were to follow and would need something to eat. I guess that’s something the evolutionists forgot. They believe everything came from water, and that’s why they’re looking for water on Mars. What it boils down to is that they believe elephants came out of water. They think trees came out of water. They contend bugs did, too. They believe you and I emerged from the water—everything made via chemical reactions by blind chance. Blind is right!

  Well, let me ask you something: By what process can human flesh come out of salt water? We just crawled out of the salt water? Oh, really? Now, I’m not a rocket scientist. I’m more of a C+ man. Half of the American population is smarter than I am (at least I’m smarter than the other half), but I don’t think water can pull it off. Raccoons and ducks and palm trees from blind chance working with salt water to make all this? Not hardly!

  Where did apples come from? Plums? Did corn, wheat, barley, cucumbers, persimmons, tomatoes, nuts—each with their own DNA codes—all come from salt water? Don’t put your faith in that! The narrative of the Bible is that God prepared the planet for animal and human life, and then salad (vegetation) was the first item on the menu to sustain them. Logical. Exactly what you would expect from an intelligent Being.

  Evolutionists propose, basically, that before we were humans, we were apes; and before that, rats; and before that, lizards; and before that, salamanders; and before that, fish; and so on, all the way back to the protozoans. Give me a break! So they’re saying that now we’re catching, battering, frying, and eating what we used to be? I don’t think so.

  Before a cell divides, DNA determines what it’s going to be. The DNA code is very stable. DNA is not random. I have my DNA, and you have yours. Dogs have theirs, and cats have theirs, toads have theirs, and it’s stable in kind after kind. Every living kind of plant and animal has its own distinctive, stable DNA code. The blind-chance-one-cell-mutation-eventually-to-man theory doesn’t work. It’s a theory with large assumptions and missing tens of millions of “intermediate” forms in the fossil record (a problem Darwin recognized). That dog won’t hunt.

  Evolutionists tell us that every single living thing on Earth came from the same bowl of soup. But the hard science, the fossil record of all those intermediates mutating and changing, is just not there. Every class of animal, bird, reptile, fish, invertebrate, and so on that we find in the fossil record is fully formed with its characteristics the first time it appears in the fossil record. (Evolutionists know this, by the way.)

  Certainly, there has been adaptation and limited evolution, or change, among the various types of living organisms through time. Noah did not have four hundred different species of dogs on the ark. He had representatives of different kinds of animals—not each individual species. There are breeds of dogs, hogs, various crops, etc., living today that did not exist even one hundred years ago. Living things are adaptable—and they change—but it’s “kind after kind” (Bible terminology). Living organisms can adapt as the climate or conditions change. Look at Darwin’s finches for example—different kinds of beaks. But they were all finches, and they never became another kind of organism! Horses have evolved from smaller forms in their early history to larger animals today. But they were all the same kind of creature—horses. They did not become hippos, giraffes, or lions.

  Over the years, evolutionists have taken a lot of liberties with their theories, and they can always find a way to get theoretical assertions printed in various magazines and schoolbooks, on TV, and so on. They would have the public believe it’s all been worked out as established science. Hogwash! Never has so much theory been sold as so much fact with so little real evidence as in the case of the evolution-as-explanation-for-all-life idea. It simply does not account for all the diverse, highly complex, and unique forms of life that have lived. Bottom line, the intermediates theorized are not there.

  Consider the following—a simple birdhouse, a doghouse, your house, a grand hotel. They all have certain things in common—walls, an entrance, a roof, and other touches. Why do they have a similar pattern? We attribute it to intelligence—ours. We take a functional design and then adapt it to whatever purpose we have for it. Isn’t that exactly what we expect from an intelligent Designer?

  Look at a whale’s flipper, a duck’s wing, a squirrel’s front leg, and your arm. They all have a large bone above the hinge (elbow) and a couple of smaller bones below the hinge, and then several smaller bones (phalanges) at the end. Science says these indicate a “common origin.” I say “yes, they do”—but was it blind chance or intelligence? Take a functional design, and then adapt it to whatever purpose it serves. Again, that’s exactly what we would expect from an intelligent Designer.

  There is no rule that says we have to accept blind chance, whether wind, explosion, or wave action (these forces never organize systems), as the only possible organizer of cells, DNA, protein synthesis, the nervous system, bone tissue, the endocrine system, the autoimmune system, the respiration process, and so on. To say it was by blind chance takes an awful lot of faith!

  Those who defend the religion of blind chance often do so by intimidating, belittling, criticizing, yelling, and bullying those with other views (why are they so defensive?). All the while, they can’t show the working model or pathways that demonstrate how the creation of life, a living cell, occurred—just a fervently held faith that we could not have come from an intelligent Designer. Their faith, secular evolution, provides no reason or purpose for your existence now, and no hope for the future. Pride and resistance to the concept of a Creator (to whom we are obliged) is a powerful emotional response that ignores a logical option to “chance.” Intelligence. I’m telling you, don’t ever doubt that you have a purpose, because you were made on purpose!

  The origin of matter, the atom, Earth, the chemical processes by which DNA was formed, life, and on and on—you can find the theories. But they are only theories with no real answers. In the end, you put your faith in either blind chance or an intelligent Being. I find the latter much more satisfying and reasonable.

  Back to the biblical account: After God introduced vegetation, He created the sun and the moon on the fourth day and said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth” (Genesis 1:14–15). Did you notice that using the sun to count days and time, as we do now, is not introduced until verses fourteen and fifteen, on the fourth day? So God created light on the first day (verse three) but did not localize that light into the sun to count days and seasons until much later. The vegetation created on the third day had light (verse three), but the sun as we know it was not formed until the fourth day.

  Genesis 1:20 tells us that on the fifth day, “God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.’ ” The fish are in place, and then come the birds, which feed on the fish and vegetation. The water was “teeming” with living things—from microscopic to bigger and bigger—a food chain. To this day, you can go to the ocean and see shrimp, shad, mackerel, albacore tuna, swordfish, and sharks all still according to their “kind.” What about the winged creatures? There are robins, bluebirds, sparrows, owls, hawks, and eagles. There are mallard ducks, teal ducks, wood ducks, and gadwalls. All covered in feathers with unique and beautiful markings. And they’re all reproducing kind after kind.

  Genesis 1:24 says, “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ ” The earth was created for humankind to inhabit. Living creatures were placed
here before we were. We needed a food supply: vegetation, fish, birds, and wild animals—they were all created for us. And God gave us permission to whack ’em and stack ’em.

  According to Genesis 1:26–28, “God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” He introduced Adam and Eve to Earth and all that he had created for them.

  God wanted people to rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky. There are your ducks, geese, quails, and pheasants. God wanted people to rule over the livestock and wild animals. There are your four-footers like deer, bears, moose, and squirrels. He told us everything that lives and moves would be food for us. So much for PETA and these other animal rights groups telling me I shouldn’t be shooting ducks. God sanctioned me to do it, Jack!

  One word here about people being made in God’s image. What makes us human? It’s not intelligence. It’s not standing on two legs. It’s our soul and spirit made in God’s image. The existence of a conscience, moral values (when man doesn’t smother it because of sin), ethics, aesthetics, and abstract qualities are all spiritual qualities. These qualities do not come from dirt or water; they are not found in the animal kingdom. They come from God. Spiritual qualities exist today because they were part of the “First Cause,” God, in the beginning.

  Based on what I’ve read in the Bible and what I’ve seen on earth, I know there will be a resurrection of human bodies from the ground. I see resurrection all around me. The secular crowd and many evolutionists say they don’t believe in God. They ignore what He gave us. When, in fact, we should be in awe of what God gave us. It is literally amazing. He can grow a plant from a seed the size of a grain of rice and make a bull redwood out of it that would take several trucks and loaders to haul off. Everywhere I look in nature, I see evidence of a Designer.