Whole Counsel of God

For the Whole World

Recently, I watched on TV two preachers who are brethren in Christ discuss the Creation versus Evolution controversy. I was very pleased with, and perfectly agreed with, what they had said, and then I was very disappointed when one of them asked the other "What about the fossils?" The other answered that he did not know about the fossils. I was surprised because he had shown by what he had already said that he had studied well what he discussed on other matters pertaining to the Creation versus Evolution controversy. I fear he lost his credibility with many when he said he did not know about the fossils. It is my opinion that there are very few preachers of the Gospel who can do well presenting lessons on the Creation versus Evolution issue, and especially the fossil record in the earth's crust.

In the year 1925, which was the year I was born, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan conducted a debate on Creation versus Evolution in the Rhea County courthouse in Dayton, TN. It was reported that Mr. Bryan invited George McCready Price to be with him during the debate, and that Mr. Price did not do so because he had to be out of the country. Mr. Price was a creationist and a very scholarly paleontologist, which means he was a fossil expert. It was very unfortunate that Mr. Price could not join Mr. Bryan at the debate because Mr. Bryan knew very little about the fossils. Mr. Darrow misused the fossil record against Mr. Bryan, and the press emphasized how Clarence Darrow won the debate. Had Mr. Price been there, Mr. Darrow would have been shown to be in gross error regarding the fossils!

I urge brethren who deal with the Creation versus Evolution issue to get well in mind some of the facts about fossils. Fossils do not support the evolutionary hypothesis, but instead they refute it. The following are some of the evidences of that, and I hope they will help preachers and others in the battle against the false doctrines of evolution.

"The Cambrian Explosion"

Evolutionary geologists say that the earth's crust is made up of six layers, each of which was gradually formed during millions of years they call a "Geologic Age." Some have called this the "onion layers" theory, because they say the geological layers are in place like the layers of an onion.

Evolutionists cannot show us anywhere on the earth where all six layers of six geological ages are in one place. Even if they claim they can show two or more of them in one place, they may not be in place in the right order.

Evolutionists call the fourth from the bottom geological age layer the Paleozoic Geological Age. They say it is divided into several geological eras, and they call the first or the lowest of these the Cambrian Era, which they say was formed about 500 million years ago. I do not believe their timetable because of the many scientific evidences that prove the earth is very young. I present some of these in one of my books entitled Evolution in the Light of Scripture, Science and Sense. There are also many inconsistencies in the so-called geological ages timetable of the evolutionists.

Evolutionists say that what they call the Cambrian rock is the oldest rock with fossils in it. They admit that in this "oldest rock" with fossils in it, there are massive formations of the fossils of multitudes of life forms that were fully developed when fossilized. This gives evolutionists much perplexity, because they know there are no fossils in lower or older rock, of the imagined ancestors of the life forms fossilized in the Cambrian rock! Where then did these life forms come from? This "sudden appearance" of fossils in great abundance in the Cambrian rock they call "the Cambrian Explosion."

The following is a statement concerning "the Cambrian explosion" which is from a big book in my library which was written by three professors at three prestigious universities.

Although the Cambrian explosion was once considered illusory, an artifact of poor fossil preservation in the Precambrian rocks, almost all paleontologists now agree that an extraordinary diversification of animal life occurred at the beginning of the Cambrian. There is little agreement on what may have triggered the Cambrian explosion, but there can be no dispute about its consequences. Virtually all basic multi-cellular animal designs evolved at this time, and the earth's oceans became stocked with them. (Integrated Principles of Zoology by Cleveland Pl. Hickman, Jr.; Larry S. Roberts; and Frances M. Hickman, page 944.)

Please note that the statement says that "almost all paleontologists now agree that an extraordinary diversification of animal life" is represented in the fossils which evolutionists say are in what they call the oldest rock that has fossils in it!

The Flood and Fossils

The evidence is such that it is more reasonable to think the general fossil record of the earth's crust was laid down by the action of a universal flood than to think the fossil record was made gradually by uniform or ordinary natural causes over long-drawn-out periods of time as described by evolutionists and called by them "geologic ages." It has been pointed out that the structure and order of the fossil record actually does not contain evidence that organic evolution has occurred.

Furthermore, the fossils themselves certainly do not offer any evidence that organic evolution has occurred. Evolutionists ascribe ages to rocks. What they call Cambrian Age rock is according to them the oldest rock containing fossils. Even if such rock is the "oldest," there is no evidence in these "oldest rocks" that organic evolution has occurred, because the fossils in these "oldest rocks" are fossils of fully developed forms! What evolutionists need they do not have; they need some fossils of partially developed forms! They need some fossils of forms that were in the process of changing into another kind of living form when they were fossilized. These they do not have!

If fossils should tell us anything as to origins, they would tell us that life forms came into being suddenly because in what the evolutionists call very old rocks there are fossils of fully developed forms, and fossils of such highly skilled and complex life forms as whales, kangaroos, bats, sea cows, seals, frogs, etc. The late and lamented Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, Dr. Douglas DeWar said: "No fossil has been found linking any of these with its imagined generalized ancestor."

The presence of fossils of such high skilled forms in what they call very old fossil bearing rocks gives evolutionists no end of trouble. Why have no fossils been found of less skilled and less complex forms which would represent the ancestors of these highly skilled forms?

Furthermore, the lack of evidence in the fossil record that there have been transitions of living forms into other and different living forms, which is what evolutionists say has happened, also presents a tremendous problem for evolutionists and their faith and doctrine. Dr. George Gaylord Simpson of Yale, a leading evolutionist of our time, faces up to this problem and says it is possible that such gradual transitions are not recorded in the fossil record because they did not exist. He says it is possible that changes were not by transition but by "sudden leaps" in evolution. He admits there are many different views among evolutionists as to how such "sudden leaps" occurred. Dr. Simpson says one man named Beurlen ascribes such "sudden leaps" to an "inner urge" on the part of the organisms concerned. (The Meaning of Evolution by George Gaylord Simpson, Yale University Press, page 102.) The New York Times said of this book: "This book is, without question, the general best work on the meaning of evolution to appear in our time."

Thus, evolutionists, knowing there is no fossil evidence that one living form ever gradually developed into another kind of living form, have gone on record that perhaps there have been "sudden leaps" instead of gradual changes! This view is not in harmony with the doctrine of uniformity, for such leaps certainly would not be uniform! They certainly would not be like anything now observable in the phenomena of nature! Of course, the idea that such "sudden leaps" have occurred was not born of any evidence, scientific or otherwise, but instead born of the wishful thinking of evolutionists who were indeed desperate to come up with some sort of explanation that would prop up their feeble hypothesis. And these are the very people who call on Bible believers to reject the account that is given in Genesis and elsewhere in the Word of God concerning the origin of all things! This scribe finds it easier to believe the Bible account of creation than to believe the feeble doctrines of the evolutionists which attempt to repudiate the Bible account.