Justin Taylor's Blog, page 2

A Harmony of the Birth of Jesus: Matthew and Luke

Here is a simple chronology to show how the events of Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2 fit together and what each of the gospel authors emphasize. Matthew tells things more through the eyes of Joseph and Luke (who perhaps interviewed Mary) tells the events largely through her eyes.

MatthewLukeThe genealogy of Jesus1:1–173:23–38Gabriel promises the birth of John to Zechariah1:5–25Gabriel promises the birth of Jesus to Mary1:26–38Mary visits Elizabeth1:39–56Elizabeth gives birth to John the Baptist1:57–80An angel appears to Joseph about Mary’s pregnancy1:18–25Mary gives birth to Jesus in Bethlehem2:1–7An angel tells shepherds about Jesus and they visit2:8–20Mary and Joseph bring 40-day-old Jesus to the temple2:21–40Magi arrive from eastern lands (Jesus aged 1–2?)2:1–12An angel tells Joseph to escape to Egypt with his family2:13–18An angel tells Joseph to return with his family to Nazareth2:19–23

 

Here are some clips from the amazing Lumo Project:

Who Is Jesus Christ?

In his exegetically rich and historically conversant theological dogmatics on Christology, Daniel Treier unfolds the progressive revelation of Scripture’s claims about who Christ is, summarized as follows:

The eternal Son of God, enjoying the communion of the blessed Trinity,

gives human beings a creaturely share in such blessedness,

becoming the Bridegroom through whom we will enjoy the eternal consummation of our union with God.

The book is Lord Jesus Christ, New Studies in Dogmatics, ed. Michael Allen and Scott Swain (Zondervan, 2023).

Treier’s argument proceeds by way of ten theses. I thought these were so clear and helpful, tethered to biblical texts, that it’d be worth reproducing here for your edification.

1. The Son of God

As epitomized in Ephesians 1:3–14,

Jesus Christ is the Son of God,

who enjoys eternal communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

2. The Unique Image of God

As epitomized in Colossians 1:15–29,

Jesus Christ is the unique Image of God,

who embodies the divine Wisdom active in the creation of the world.

3. The Messiah

As epitomized in Luke 24:13–35,

Jesus Christ is the Messiah,

who fulfills God’s covenant promises.

4. Immanuel, God with Us

As epitomized in Isaiah 7:14,

the Old Testament anticipated the first advent of Jesus Christ as Immanuel, God with us, incarnate in a fully human life.

5. The Word

As epitomized in John 1:1–18,

Jesus Christ is the Word,

whose incarnation is God’s ultimate self-revelation.

6. The Lord

As epitomized in Philippians 2:5–11,

Jesus Christ is the Lord,

whose humiliation as Servant revealed the glory of God’s love in rendering the ultimate human obedience.

7. The Savior

As epitomized in Luke 4:14–30,

Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior,

whose earthly mission inaugurated God’s kingdom in person.

8. The Son of Man

As epitomized in Mark 10:32–45 (with Isaiah 52:13–53:12 in the background),

Jesus Christ is the Son of Man,

whose passion was the once-for-all act of atonement through which God redeemed us.

9. The Mediator

As epitomized in Hebrews 7:22–8:6,

Jesus Christ is the theandric Mediator between God and humanity,

whose bodily resurrection and ascension inaugurated his exaltation.

10. The Bridegroom

As epitomized in Revelation 21:1–22:5,

Jesus Christ is the Bridegroom,

whose return will bring the consummation of creation and redemption, glorifying the covenant people to be fully at home with God.

How the Poet John Milton Responded When He Went Blind in His Forties

By the early 1650s—in his early 40s—the great English poet John Milton (1608–1674) was blind in both eyes, probably experiencing bilateral retinal detachments.

It was during this time that he dictated sonnet 19, “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent,” reflecting on this change in his life and wrestling with the purposes of God in his disability:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

A Simple Way to Help Get 100,000 Bibles to Kids in Africa

Crossway had entered into phase 2 of its million-Bible giveaway to under-resourced people around the world.

“If we care about the future of the church—the future of the church is in Africa, because the next generation of the church is going to be there—then we ought to help them by providing Bibles, study Bibles, and sound doctrine. We should flood the continent with God’s Word.”

—Karen Elliott, Executive Director of the Rafiki Foundation

To help, go to crossway.org/donate/onemillionbibles/.

The Church as a Theo-Political Order

Edmund Clowney:

The church as the community of Christ’s kingdom on earth is a theo-political order.

While all things are under the rule of Christ, it is his saving rule that constitutes his kingdom (Col. 1:13).

The church is the heavenly polis on earth, the new humanity whose hearts have been circumcised by the Holy Spirit. Its breadth reaches out to all peoples; its depth renews the heart (Jer. 32:39; Ezek. 11:19).

We have no abiding city here; the church cannot be identified with the kingdoms of this world (Heb. 13:14).

But we do have a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. As such, the church exercises heavenly citizenship in the fellowship of the saints (Heb. 11:10, 16; 12:28; Phil. 3:20).

The community exists on earth, but is governed by the keys of the heavenly kingdom, with spiritual, not physical sanctions (Matt. 16:19; Rev. 3:7).

—Edmund P. Clowney, The Church, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 1995), 189.

George Verwer (1938–2023)

On Friday, April 14, 2023, mission mobilizer George Verwer, age 84, went to be with his Lord and Savior after a two-month battle with Sarcoma cancer. He is survived by his wife,Drena, and their three children, Ben, Daniel, and Christa.

Childhood

George Verwer Jr. was born on July 3, 1938, in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch-immigrant parents who loved their son, provided a stable home, and weren’t overly strict.

Life was fun, and George sought to live life to the full. He did not remember having an unhappy day in his childhood. He thought of himself as a hot-shot athlete in primary school, though he wasn’t quite good enough to make it into high school athletics.

His entrepreneurial mischievousness was evident at an early age. He was the sort of kid who once lit the local woods on fire but also started his own fire-extinguisher business alongside his stamp-collecting mail-order business. At one point he hatched a scheme to buy and then sell “girly magazines” magazines for a profit—though he never got around to doing so. He was against drinking, but he loved go out and dance, staying up all hours of the night listening to the latest music from the 1950s. He had a lot of girlfriends, but he wanted to be “clean” and not to go too far. He always had something witty to say and could make all of his schoolmates laugh. Each year he walked home with a lot of cash on “Goosey Night” (the night before Halloween), where windows got broken and things got stolen.

Conversion

If George had been asked if he was a Christian, he probably would have said yes. On Sundays his mother took him to the local congregation of the Reformed Church in America (his unbelieving father stayed home), but he didn’t hear the Bible preached from the pulpit of this mainline congregation. It seemed to him to be more of a social club than anything.

But someone began praying for George. Dorothea Clapp and her family lived across the street from the high school, and her son Danny had been the president of the Student Council during George’s freshman year. For seventeen years Mrs. Clapp prayed faithfully for the students at Ramsey High to know the Lord. When sophomore George Verwer came across her radar screen, she put him on her prayer list (she called it “the Holy Ghost hit list”) and prayed that he would trust Christ and become a missionary some day. She had a Gospel of John, distributed by the Pocket Testament League, and sent it to him in the mail as a gift. George read it on and off over the year, but to little effect.

One day he was at the store, looking to buy one of those girly magazines, when he noticed a magazine featuring the 35-year-old evangelist, Billy Graham. George picked up the magazine, read the article, and realized that Graham was someone special.

In the spring of 1955 a man who lived on the same street as George invited him to attend an event in New York City, where Graham would be the guest speaker at Word of Life’s 15th anniversary rally in Madison Square Garden, hosted by Word of Life founder and evangelist Jack Wyrtzen.

So on March 3, 1955, George and several others—including a girl from his high school and Sunday School—loaded into a bus and made the 30-mile journey down to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.

When George boarded the bus that Thursday afternoon, he had no thought of becoming a Christian. But at the end of Graham’s sermon, he issued an invitation, exhorting his listeners to come and to make a decision for Christ. But George didn’t move. As others began to walk the aisle, Billy continued to implore them to come as a hymn like “Just as I Am” played in the background. And George began to feel conviction for his sin and to sense his lostness. The thought was overwhelming in his mind: “This is the truth; my search is over; this is the most important thing in life.” He and the girl he was with both walked forward that night to trust in Christ. And his life would never be the same.

George found his faith almost immediately tempted. As they walked out of Madison Square Garden that night as born-again believers, a street gang member said something to George, who answered back. The guy promptly proceeded to knock George down. A gang leader emerged who told his member to back off, and George sensed the grace of the Lord. George would later say that he was often knocked down frequently in life—too often by “the lust of the eyes”—but the Lord had always kept and sustained him.

It wasn’t until a few days later that George sensed full assurance, while walking across a field to get on the bus to go to school, having been helped by George Cutting’s well-known booklet, Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment for the Christian. He then proceeded to read Billy Graham’s bestseller, Peace with God: The Secret of Happiness (published in 1953), and he received much of this theological grounding from Graham sermons and publications.

Evangelist

When God converted George Verwer, he not only made a new creation, he also created an evangelist. His senior year he was elected Student Council President, and he used this position to distribute 1,000 copies of the Gospel of John. He also began giving away free Christian books—a habit he continued for nearly 70 more years. He personally gave away hundreds of thousands of books, hoping to reach the million-mark for personal copies handed out. By God’s grace George saw several classmates accept the Lord through his passion to call others to embrace the good news.

Missionary

After he graduated from high school he attended Maryville College, a private Christian college in Tennessee. That first semester he had an idea: perhaps he could return to Ramsey High School while on Christmas break and host a rally at his old school. Amazingly, the public high school agreed, and the auditorium was packed with 600 students. George Verwer Sr. even attended to support his son’s new endeavor.

When it came time to call his listeners to faith, George was amazed to see 125 students stand up, professing their desire to follow Christ. Most surprising of all was that George Sr. stood among them. His father had become his brother.

Later that year George was shocked to learn that 7 out of 10 people in Mexico had no access to the Scriptures. The solution seemed obvious to George: he needed to go there and get them the Word. His friend Dale Rhoton said he would pray with George about this. After they prayed together for a few minutes on their knees, George turned to Dale and asked, “Well, are you ready to go?” Dale responded, “George, it takes longer than that.” George was disheartened and confused: “Why does it take people so long to see it?”

In the summer of 1957, George and Dale, along with their friend Walter Borchard—each 18 years old—sold their possessions, loaded a 1949 Dodge panel van with tracts and 1,000 copies of the Gospel of John in Spanish, and drove to Mexico. They called their ministry “Send the Light,” and it was legally incorporated the following year. They returned to Mexico in the summers of 1958 and 1959.

By this time George had transferred to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. He met and was attracted to a young woman named Drena. During their first meeting, he told her, “Probably nothing is going to happen between us, but I’m going to be a missionary, and if you marry me, you’ll probably end up being eaten by cannibals in New Guinea.” They were married in Milwaukee in 1960 after George graduated. They skipped their honeymoon and headed straight to Mexico for missions. They were committed to not spending any money. When they got to Wheaton, George offered their wedding cake to the gas station attendant in exchange for gas. The worker, a Christian, filled up the tank and let them keep the cake. But at the next stop, the attendant took the cake in exchange for a tank of gas. They got to Mexico without spending a penny.

Operation Mobilisation

By 1960 George and his friends turned their attention to Europe, seeking to mobilize local churches for global missions which would be led by indigenous rather than foreign missionaries. By 1963 they expanded the work to India and the Middle East, and in 1970, the ministry—now called Operation Mobilisation (OM)—purchased its first ship.

Today OM is involved in over 85 countries (including Latin America, Central Asia, the former Soviet states, the Middle East, and Europe). They have around 3,500 workers, and it’s estimated that over 125,000 people have participated in an OM outreach.

Final Chapter

George Verwer handed over the leadership of OM in 2003 at the age of 65. But he did not “retire.” Even into his 70s and 80s, Verwer had the energy of someone half his age. He wore his trademark globe jacket, speaking next to (and often holding) an inflated globe of the world as a visual aid, seeking to motivate students to read and to pray and to share and to go. One moment he would be bounding around the stage, making his audience laugh, and then without warning he would prick their consciences with the reality of the unreached who so desperately need to hear the good news.

Legacy

George Verwer was a man who never got over the goodness of the good news. His passion was to see all the peoples of the world finally and eternally glad in Christ.

Few people in the second half of the 20th century have done more to mobilize for the unreached and the unengaged, and few have equipped more believers and unbelievers with gospel literature. And it all began with a faithful mother and neighbor who committed to pray and to send a student the Gospel of John, and continued with a businessman who took the risk of inviting a student to an evangelistic rally, and it continued with a young evangelist who preached the message of the cross. God is always pleased to use the foolishness of the weak to accomplish great things for the fame of his name.

What Is a Man? What Is a Woman? How Our Laws Should Define Male and Female

The science behind sex determination in placental mammals (mammals, including humans, that have a placenta) is clear:

In placental mammals, the presence of a Y chromosome determines sex.

Normally, cells from females contain two X chromosomes, and cells from males contain an X and a Y chromosome.

Occasionally, individuals are born with sex chromosome aneuploidies [meaning, they are extra or missing], and the sex of these individuals is always determined by the absence or presence of a Y chromosome.

In everyday language:

a male has a Y chromosome;a female does not have a Y chromosome.

When it comes to defining men and women, male and female, a distinction can be made between “sex” (a binary biological reality of being male or female, ordered toward reproduction, even if reproduction never takes place) and “gender” (psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural expressions of being male or female).

Gender activists are working hard these days to change federal laws and regulations (like Title IX), so that “sex” includes the social construct or psychological perception of “gender identity”—which guts the term “sex” of its meaning.

That has led other legislators to attempt to define “sex” in a biological way. But sometimes they do this in a way that is hasty and imprecise. They need the help of someone like analytic philosopher Jay Richards.

He says that a good and precise definition of sex will do three things:

It will capture the central concept of biological sex—the orientation of male and female bodies for reproduction.It will refer to what happens under normal development—while accounting for disorders.It will accommodate the fact that organisms have and do different things at different stages of development.

Leave any of those three out, and the definition will suffer from imprecision and open the door to counterexamples and objections.

So what would be a good definition?

Here is what he proposes:

A human male is,

minimally,

a member of the human species who,

under normal development,

produces relatively small, mobile gametes—sperm—at some point in his life cycle, and has a reproductive and endocrine system oriented around the production of that gamete.

A human female is,

minimally,

a member of the human species who,

under normal development,

produces relatively large, relatively immobile gametes—ova—at some point in her life cycle, and has a reproductive and endocrine system oriented around the production of that gamete.

Note these two important caveats:

(1) Minimally. These definitions don’t say everything there is to say, but they say nothing false. In other words, everything they say is true, even if there is more truth to be told (e.g., about being created in the image of God for a particular mission).

(2) Under normal development. This acknowledges that abnormalities and disorders exist. We know, for example, that human beings are bipeds (under normal development, they have two legs). But we also know that if a chromosome or an event in utero disrupts the development of legs, or if a later accident causes the loss of legs, that we do not say that the person is a member of another species of “interspecies.”

So what do we do if a newborn lacks a secondary sex characteristic (like a penis) or has ambiguous genitalia or has a chromosomal anomaly?

Richards responds:

We would not, and should not, conclude that the child is not a human, or has no sex, or is some third sex. In most cases, we can with a bit more investigation determine that the child is male or female, and so would have the usual features of that sex except for a disorder that disrupted normal development.

Even if we could not determine the sex of an individual, we would treat this as an epistemic limit. We would not, or at least should not, treat such a person as a member of a third sex, or of no sex.

In short, Richards says:

Current efforts to redefine sex to include “gender identity” would dissolve sex as a stable legal category and create legal chaos. In response, public institutions must shore up their defenses. One key way to do that is by defining sex—including male and female—precisely in law.

You can read the whole thing here.

See also this piece by biologist Colin Wright in The Wall Street Journal.

Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? Three Historical Facts (+ Four Explanations That Don’t Work)

Why did Jesus die?

Because he was making outrageous claims about his identity.

Why would anyone take these claims seriously?

Because this followers claim that he rose from the dead?If he did, that gives considerable weight to his claim.If he didn’t, his claims can be safely dismissed as just another interesting but tragic figure of history.

So: Did Jesus rise from the dead?

To answer that question, we need to ask two more questions:

What are the facts that require explanation?Which explanation best accounts for these facts?

These two videos from William Lane Craig’s ministry, Reasonable Faith, provide an overview of answers to each one.

Historical Fact #1: The tomb of Jesus of Nazareth was discovered empty.

This discovery is reported in

six independent sourcesLuke 24:1–12John 20:1–81 Cor. 15:3–5Mark 16:1–8Matt. 28:1–10Acts 2:29–32some of these are among the earliest materials to be found in the New Testament.

This is important because

when an event is recorded by two or more unconnected sources, historians’ confidence that the event actually happened increases;the earlier these sources are dated, the higher their confidence.

Women were said to have discovered the tomb.

This is likely historical, because in that culture, a woman’s testimony was considered next to worthless.A later legend or fabrication would have had men making this discovery.

Jewish authorities’ response to the empty tomb:

They said that Jesus’ followers had stolen his body,thereby admitting that Jesus’s tomb was in fact empty!

Jacob Kremer: “Most scholars, by far, hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb.”

Historical Fact #2: Many people experienced appearances of Jesus alive after his death.

In one of the earliest letters in the New Testament, Paul provides a list of witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection appearances.

He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Finally, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor. 15:5–8)

Furthermore, various resurrection appearances of Jesus are independently confirmed by the Gospel accounts.

On the basis of Paul’s testimony alone, virtually all historical scholars agree that various individuals and groups experienced appearances of Jesus alive after his death.

Gerd Lüdemann: “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”

Historical Fact #3: The followers of Jesus believed in the resurrection.

After Jesus’ crucifixion, his followers were

devastated,demoralized, andhiding in fear for their lives.

This is not what they as Jews were expecting.

Jews:

had no concept of a messiah who would be executed by his enemies,had no concept of a messiah who would come back to life.believed only in a resurrection that was a universal event on judgement day after the end of the world, not an individual event within history.believed that crucifixion as a criminal meant that someone was literally under God’s curse.

But . . .

They became so completely convinced of Jesus’s resurrection that when threatened with death, not one of them recanted.Even the Pharisee, Paul, who persecuted Christians, suddenly became a Christian himself, as did Jesus’ skeptical younger brother James.

Luke Timothy Johnson: “Some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was.”

N. T. Wright: “That is why as an historian I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”

Naturalism is the belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes.

The four most popular naturalistic explanations are as follows:

Naturalistic Explanation #1: The disciples faked the resurrection.The disciples stole Jesus’s body from the tomb.The disciples then lied about seeing Jesus alive, thereby perpetrating the greatest hoax of all time.

Problems

It is hopelessly anachronistic; it looks at the disciples’ situation through the rearview mirror of Christian history instead of from the standpoint of a first century Jew. (Remember, resurrection was a universal event at the end of the world with no connection to the Messiah.)It fails to address the disciples’ obvious sincerity.People don’t willingly die for something they know is not true.These people sincerely believed the message they proclaimed and were willing to die for.

No scholar defends the conspiracy theory today.

Naturalistic Explanation #2: Jesus didn’t really die.Jesus didn’t really die;He revived in the tomb somehow, escaped, and managed to convince his disciples he was risen from the dead.

Problems

It’s medically impossible.The Roman executioners were professionals.They knew what they were doing and made sure their victims were dead before taken down.Jesus was tortured so extensively that even if he was taken down alive, he would have died in the sealed tomb.This theory is wildly implausible.Seeing a half-dead man who crawled out of the tomb desperately in need of bandaging and medical attention would hardly have convinced the disciples that he was gloriously risen from the dead.

No New Testament historians defend this theory today.

Naturalistic Explanation #3: The body of Jesus was displaced from the first tomb and the disciples found it empty.Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body in his tomb temporarily because it was convenient;Later he moved the corpse to a criminal’s common graveyard;The disciples visited the first tomb and found it empty;They concluded that Jesus must have risen from the dead.

Problems

Jewish laws prohibited moving a corpse after it was interred except to the family tombThe criminals’ graveyard was located close to the place of execution so that burial there would not have been a problem.Once the disciples began to proclaim Jesus’s resurrection, Joseph would have corrected their mistake.

No current scholars endorse this theory.

Naturalistic Explanation #4: The disciples didn’t really see Jesus but were all hallucinating.They just imagined that he appeared before them.

Problems

Jesus appearednot just one time, but many times;not just in one place, but in different places;not just to one person, but to different persons;not just to individuals, but to groups of people;and not just to believers, but to unbelievers as well.There is nothing in the psychological case books on hallucinations comparable to these resurrection appearances.Hallucinations of Jesus would have led the disciples to believe at most that Jesus had been transported to heaven, not risen from the dead, in contradiction to their Jewish beliefs.In the ancient world, visions of the deceased were not evidence that the person was alive, but evidence that he was dead and had moved on to the afterworld.This theory doesn’t even attempt to explain the empty tomb.

The four most popular naturalistic theories fail to explain the historical facts.

They are universally rejected by contemporary scholarship.

The other possibility is the explanation given by the original eyewitnesses:

God raised Jesus from the dead.

Unlike the other theories, this makes perfect sense of

the empty tomb,the appearances of Jesus alive, andgroup of dejected followers suddenly transformed by a radical new belief in a risen messiah and willing to die for that belief.

But is this explanation plausible?

If it’s even possible that God exists, then miracles are possible.Surely it’s possible that God exists.And if miracles are possible, then this explanation of the resurrection cannot be ruled out

So how do you explain the resurrection?

What Is the Bible to a Pastor?

Thomas Murphy, pastor of the Frankford Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1849 to 1895, wrote in his classic on Pastoral Theology: The Pastor in the Various Duties of His Office (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1877), about what the Bible should mean to a pastor:

Look at the Bible. The pastor has to do with it at every point of his work. He must come to it in everything he undertakes. He is nothing without it.

It is all in all to him in his office.

It is more to him than any—than all—other books that were ever penned.

The Bible contains his credentials as an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

It is the message which he is appointed to reiterate with all fervor to his fellow-men.

It is the treasury from which he can ever draw the riches of divine truth.

It is the Urim and Thummim to which he has constant access, and from which he can learn the mind of Jehovah with all clearness.

It is the audience-chamber where he will be received into the presence of the Lord and hear words of more than earthly wisdom.

It is the armory from which he can be clothed with the panoply of salvation.

It is the sword of the Spirit before which no enemy can possibly stand.

It is his book of instructions where the great duties of his office are clearly defined.

Murphy then quotes W. E. Schenck to the effect that the Bible along contains the warrant of the sacred office he bears:

In it alone is found the record of his great commission as an ambassador of God.

It alone authoritatively exhibits and defines the official duties he must perform.

It alone tells him of the glorious rewards he may expect if he be found faithful.

Nay, more, it contains the subject-matter for all his preaching and his other professional labors.

Murphy adds:

It is a shame for a preacher not to be a master in the knowledge of the Book of books, which is everything to him.

The Problems with Neo-Darwinism

Do you believe in evolution?

The proper Christian answer to that question depends on the meaning of the term.

In their 2003 essay “The Meanings of Evolution,” Stephen C. Meyer and Michael Newton Keas explain the term is actually used in six distinct ways:

Evolution as change over timeEvolution as gene frequency changeEvolution as limited common descentEvolution as a mechanism that produces limited change or descent with modificationEvolution as universal common descentEvolution as the “blind watchmaker” thesis

“Mere evolution” (that is, evolution means 1–4), they argue, is “one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have,” to use language from the National Academy of Sciences. Mere evolution encompasses a vast number of specific cosmological, geological, and biological theories that “incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences.”

On the other hand, they argue, “a significant minority of scientists dissent on evidential grounds from the theory of universal common descent (evolution #5), and an even greater group dissents from the blind watchmaker hypothesis (evolution #6).”

Here are their explanations for each definition:

1. Evolution as Change Over Time

Nature has a history; it is not static.

Natural sciences deal with evolution in its first sense—change over time in the natural world—when they seek to reconstruct series of past events to tell the story of nature’s history.

Astronomers study the life cycles of stars;geologists ponder the changes in the earth’s surface;paleontologists note changes in the types of life that have existed over time, as represented in the sedimentary rock record (fossil succession);biologists note ecological succession within recorded human history, which may have, for example, transformed a barren island into a mature forested island community.

Although the last example has little to do with neoDarwinian evolutionary theory, it still fits within the first general sense of evolution as natural historical progression or sequence of events.

2. Evolution as Gene Frequency Change

Population geneticists study changes in the frequencies of alleles in gene pools.

This very specific sense of evolution, though not without theoretical significance, is closely tied to a large collection of precise observations. The melanism studies of peppered moths, though currently contested, are among the most celebrated examples of such studies in microevolution. For the geneticist, gene frequency change is “evolution in action.”

3. Evolution as Limited Common Descent

Virtually all scientists (even many creationists) would agree that Darwin’s dozen or more famed Galapagos Island finch species are probably descended from a single continental South American finch species. Although such “evolution” did not occur during the brief time scale of the lives of scientists since Darwin (as in the case of the peppered moth), the pattern of biogeographical distribution of these birds strongly suggests to most scientists that all of these birds share a common ancestor.

Evolution defined as “limited common descent” designates the scientifically uncontroversial idea that many different varieties of similar organisms within different species, genera, or even families are related by common ancestry.

Note that it is possible for some scientists to accept evolution when defined in this sense without necessarily accepting evolution defined as universal common descent— that is, the idea that all organisms are related by common ancestry.

4. Evolution as a Mechanism that Produces Limited Change or Descent with Modification

The term evolution also refers to the mechanism that produces the morphological change implied by limited common descent or descent with modification through successive generations. Evolution in this sense refers chiefly to the mechanism of natural selection acting on random genetic variation or mutations. This sense of the term refers to the idea that the variation/selection mechanism can generate at least limited biological or morphological change within a population.

Nearly all biologists accept the efficacy of natural selection (and associated phenomena, such as the founder effect and genetic drift) as a mechanism of speciation. Even so, many scientists now question whether such mechanisms can produce the amount of change required to account for the completely novel organs or body plans that emerge in the fossil record.

Thus, almost all biologists would accept that the variation/selection mechanism can explain relatively minor variations among groups of organisms (evolution meaning #4), even if some of those biologists question the sufficiency of the mechanism (evolution meaning #6) as an explanation for the origin of the major morphological innovations in the history of life.

5. Evolution as Universal Common Descent

Many biologists commonly use the term evolution to refer to the idea that all organisms are related by common ancestry from a single living organism.

Darwin represented the theory of universal common descent or universal “descent with modification” with a “branching tree” diagram, which showed all present life forms as having emerged gradually over time from one or very few original common ancestors. Darwin’s theory of biological history is often referred to as a monophyletic view because it portrays all organisms as ultimately related as a single family.

6. Evolution as the “Blind Watchmaker” Thesis

The “blind watchmaker” thesis, to appropriate Richard Dawkins’s clever term, stands for the Darwinian idea that all new living forms arose as the product of unguided, purposeless, material mechanisms, chiefly natural selection acting on random variation or mutation. Evolution in this sense implies that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variations (and other equally naturalistic processes) completely suffices to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.

Although Darwinists and neo-Darwinists admit that living organisms appear designed for a purpose, they insist that such “design” is only apparent, not real, precisely because they also affirm the complete sufficiency of unintelligent natural mechanisms (that can mimic the activity of a designing intelligence) of morphogenesis. In Darwinism, the variation/selection mechanism functions as a kind of “designer substitute.”

As Dawkins summarizes the blind watchmaker thesis:

Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye.

The Discovery Institute summarizes five areas of science that pose serious problems for the neo-Darwinian model of chemical and biological evolution:

Genetics: Mutations cause harm and do not build complexity.Biochemistry: Unguided and random processes cannot produce cellular complexity.Paleontology: The fossil record lacks intermediate fossils.Taxonomy: Biologists have failed to construct Darwin’s “Tree of Life.”Chemistry: The chemical origin of life remains an unsolved mystery.1. Genetics

Mutations cause harm and do not build complexity.

Darwinian evolution relies on random mutations that are selected by a blind, unguided process of natural selection that has no goals.

Such a random and undirected process tends to harm organisms and does not improve them or build complexity.

As National Academy of Sciences biologist Lynn Margulis has said,

new mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.

Similarly, past president of the French Academy of Sciences, Pierre-Paul Grasse, contended that

“mutations have a very limited ‘constructive capacity’” because “no matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.”

2. Biochemistry

Unguided and random processes cannot produce cellular complexity.

Our cells contain incredible complexity, like miniature factories using machine technology but dwarfing the complexity and efficiency of anything produced by humans.

Cells use miniature circuits, motors, feedback loops, encoded language, and even error-checking machinery to decode and repair our DNA.

Darwinian evolution struggles to build this type of integrated complexity.

As biochemist Franklin Harold admits:

there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.

3. Paleontology

The fossil record lacks intermediate fossils.

The fossil record’s overall pattern is one of abrupt explosions of new biological forms, and possible candidates for evolutionary transitions are the exception, not the rule.

This has been recognized by many paleontologists such as Ernst Mayr who explained in 2000 that

new species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.

Similarly, a zoology textbook observed that

Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group.

4. Taxonomy

Biologists have failed to construct Darwin’s “Tree of Life.”

Biologists hoped that DNA evidence would reveal a grand tree of life where all organisms are clearly related.

It hasn’t.

Trees describing the alleged ancestral relationships between organisms based upon one gene or biological characteristic very commonly conflict with trees based upon a different gene or characteristic.

As the journal New Scientist put it,

different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories.

The eminent microbiologist Carl Woese explained that such “phylogenetic” conflicts

can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, form its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves.

This implies a breakdown in common descent, the hypothesis that all organisms share a common ancestor.

5. Chemistry

The chemical origin of life remains an unsolved mystery.

The mystery of the origin of life is unsolved and all existing theories of chemical evolution face major problems.

Basic deficiencies in chemical evolution include a lack of explanation for how a primordial soup could arise on the early earth’s hostile environment, or how the information required for life could be generated by blind chemical reactions.

As evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci has admitted,

we really don’t have a clue how life originated on Earth by natural means.