Gap Theory - Revisited

"And the earth became without form, and void."

Or at least that is how some scholars have CLAIMED Genesis 1:2 should read. (The Original Scofield Reference Bible, for instance.) This was to allow for the time that would have produced the geological "evidence," and possibly even evolutionary development. Well, now the evolutionists have come up against a "gap" of their own.

In an article in the New York Times, John Noble Wilford laments that:

"In the study of human origins, paleoanthropology stares in frustration back to a dark age from three million to less than two million years ago. The missing mass in this case is the unfound fossils to document just when and under what circumstances our own genus Homo emerged.

The origin of Homo is one of the most intriguing and intractable mysteries in human evolution. New findings only remind scientists that answers to so many of their questions about early Homo probably lie buried in the million-year dark age."

How tragic that so much time in digging for bones is used to bolster an unprovable theory which MUST assume that God does not exist. From a single jaw bone whole species are created, dated by the fossil-containing rocks that are around it! And these rocks are dated by the assumed evolution of the presumed extinct organisms that are in them.

In this article, much is made of a few bones found near Russia (Republic of Georgia). This "hominid" is thought to have migrated early on out of Africa, only to return after "evolving" beyond its contemporaries. But alas, the fossil record has a great big gap - one million years wide - with no evidence upon which to build an argument. Quoting a researcher, the article ends:

"Dr. Lieberman said that he and colleagues 'are relentlessly optimistic that we have all the information we need to answer our big questions, but just haven’t figured out the order in which to connect the dots.'

But the real problem, he added, with resignation tempering optimism, 'is that the fossil record doesn’t have enough dots.' ”

First, there is the problem of "irreducible complexity" and now there is just not enough fossils! What's a poor evolutionist to do?

The Nature of Love

"Alex’s final words were: “I love you.”

There is no doubt that Alex had a keen awareness of the situations in which that sentence is appropriate — that is, at the end of a message at the end of the day. But to say whether Alex loved the human who taught him, we’d have to know if he had a separate conceptual grasp of what love is, which is different from understanding the context in which the word occurs. By any performative standard — knowing how to use the word properly — Alex loved Dr. Pepperberg."

Verlyn Klinkenborg, NY Times Editorial

The linked article raises some interesting thoughts about the abilities of animals to actually think. But the editorial raised the question of "grasp[ing] what love is," a concept I have just recently covered in my devotional reading. Just what is love? The best description of Christian love is in I Corinthians 13:4-7 (my own translation):

This love suffers long, for it is kind. This love is not envious. This love does not brag and it is not arrogant. It is not rude, for it is not self-seeking. It is not irritable, for it does not think on bad things. It does not rejoice when it sees evil, but rejoices when it sees the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, expects all things, and it keeps itself under control.

This is of course "charity," or sacrificial love. Alex the parrot certainly displayed an affection for his trainer, as does my cat towards me. Dr. Pepperberg spent thirty years with this one bird, teaching it concepts of colors and shapes, and even, it seems, numbers. Surely, then the filial relationship was established. The bird, though, was just too selfish to know "agape" love. This sacrificial love is known ONLY among men and with God.

D. James Kennedy - Warrior in Christ's Army

“Now, I know that someday I am going to come to what some people will say is the end of this life. They will probably put me in a box and roll me right down here in front of the church, and some people will gather around, and a few people will cry. But I have told them not to do that because I don’t want them to cry. I want them to begin the service with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus, because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead. I will be more alive than I have ever been in my life, and I will be looking down upon you poor people who are still in the land of dying and have not yet joined me in the land of the living. And I will be alive forevermore, in greater health and vitality and joy than ever, ever, I or anyone has known before.”

D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.

I cannot say much personally about the ministry of the PCA's most famous preacher. His ministries have had worldwide influence and many others are writing of this in blogs and websites this weekend. Dr. Kennedy had suffered a heart attack last December and just two weeks ago had retired from the church he had founded and pastored for almost five decades. I recommend, though, that my readers go to Coral Ridge Ministries website to read of this great servant of our great God.

I recently blogged concerning Dr. Kennedy (about the time of his heart attack, unknown to me) to defend his stance on activism. He had said we are to "take back America for Christ." A local reader of our newspaper was shocked at such a radical statement. The answer to "Who's afraid of Dr. Kennedy?" -- ungodly men and women who fear righteousness! He has passed on, but his legacy remains at Coral Ridge PCA, Evangelism Explosion International, and Knox Theological Seminary, to name a few!