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God is: A scientist shows why it makes sense to believe in God
Book by Hayward, Alan
221 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
6 people want to read
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September 6, 2024
A BRITISH SCIENTIST LOOKS AT SCIENCE, GOD, AND CREATION
Dr. Alan Hayward (1923-2008) was a British engineer and physicist who was also active as an old-earth Creationist writer, and Christadelphian lay preacher; he also wrote books such as 'Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible,' 'God's truth: A scientist shows why it makes sense to believe the Bible,' etc. [It's interesting that although Hayward was a non-trinitarian Christadelphian, several "mainstream" Christian publishers carried his books.]
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1978 book, "The purpose of this book is first to deal with the unbelievers' objections, and then to set out the case for belief in God. I shall aim to do it in language that the ordinary reader can understand... My apologies, then, to those scientist readers who find my loose terminology objectionable... the notes at the end of the book are for the benefit of people who want to dig deeper, and especially for those who are studying my case in an attempt to answer it." (Pg. 16-17)
He argues, "Evolution declares that the only mutations able to survive are those which benefit the creature concerned. But what use is a partly formed feather, or a partly formed wing? They would only be a nuisance, an encumbrance, a positive handicap in the fight for survival... The way evolutionists gloss over this problem is almost unbelievable... Some argue that feathers first evolved a quilts for keeping birds warm, and only afterwards were found useful for flying. But this cannot be, because the kind of downy feathers that keep heat in, which occur on adult birds' breasts and all over young chicks, are quite different from wing feathers." (Pg. 87-88)
He asks, "Why should the story of living things be one long story of steady progress, from bacteria, all the way up the ladder of life, to man?... if the course of life depended on blind chance, it ought to have wandered about aimlessly like a dog left to itself, never moving far from its starting point. Mutations can take life downhill just as easily as uphill. So can natural selection: if the drying up of seas caused fins to evolve into legs, the flooding of continents could equally well cause legs to evolve back into fins." (Pg. 104-105)
He suggests, "theistic evolution is not at all a good fit to the scientific data... nature is full of gaps. There are frequently big gaps between living species, even bigger gaps in the fossil record, and positively enormous gaps between a great many elaborate organs and the primitive organs which are supposed to have preceded them. If the Creator had employed a continuous evolutionary process, we should expect to find smooth transitions everywhere, not a multitude of gaps... Although Genesis 1 is not free of problems... it speaks of a series of distinct acts of creation, and not one long continuous process. And it is hard to reconcile Christ's teaching about Genesis with theistic evolution." (Pg. 188)
He rejects Flood Geology: "Floods mix things up. If you have ever seen the aftermath of a flood... you will have been appalled by the chaos it has left behind... One look at an appropriate cliff or quarry face is enough. The separate strata lie on top of each other like the layers of a sandwich cake. The divisions between them are cleancut and distinct... Floods always create turmoil---but the earth's crust is full of structure and order. It simply cannot have been fashioned by the greatest flood of all time." (Pg. 193-194)
He observes, "We must be careful not to exaggerate the difficulty of reconciling Genesis with geology. Compared with all other ancient books, Genesis is superb... it creates a whole load of difficulties to insist that [the 'days' of Genesis 1] must be literal periods of twenty-four hours... The simplest solution is to assume that they merely stand for 'ages.' ... perhaps the 'days' were six occasions on which God issued edicts, or statements of intent... With these ... alternatives open to us, the six days do not present any real difficulty. We can still believe that Genesis is true, and also that the geologists are right about the long history of life on earth." (Pg. 196-197)
This is a well-argued book that is particularly good on the Creation/Evolution issue, that will be most appreciated by those accepting an "old" Earth.
Dr. Alan Hayward (1923-2008) was a British engineer and physicist who was also active as an old-earth Creationist writer, and Christadelphian lay preacher; he also wrote books such as 'Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible,' 'God's truth: A scientist shows why it makes sense to believe the Bible,' etc. [It's interesting that although Hayward was a non-trinitarian Christadelphian, several "mainstream" Christian publishers carried his books.]
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1978 book, "The purpose of this book is first to deal with the unbelievers' objections, and then to set out the case for belief in God. I shall aim to do it in language that the ordinary reader can understand... My apologies, then, to those scientist readers who find my loose terminology objectionable... the notes at the end of the book are for the benefit of people who want to dig deeper, and especially for those who are studying my case in an attempt to answer it." (Pg. 16-17)
He argues, "Evolution declares that the only mutations able to survive are those which benefit the creature concerned. But what use is a partly formed feather, or a partly formed wing? They would only be a nuisance, an encumbrance, a positive handicap in the fight for survival... The way evolutionists gloss over this problem is almost unbelievable... Some argue that feathers first evolved a quilts for keeping birds warm, and only afterwards were found useful for flying. But this cannot be, because the kind of downy feathers that keep heat in, which occur on adult birds' breasts and all over young chicks, are quite different from wing feathers." (Pg. 87-88)
He asks, "Why should the story of living things be one long story of steady progress, from bacteria, all the way up the ladder of life, to man?... if the course of life depended on blind chance, it ought to have wandered about aimlessly like a dog left to itself, never moving far from its starting point. Mutations can take life downhill just as easily as uphill. So can natural selection: if the drying up of seas caused fins to evolve into legs, the flooding of continents could equally well cause legs to evolve back into fins." (Pg. 104-105)
He suggests, "theistic evolution is not at all a good fit to the scientific data... nature is full of gaps. There are frequently big gaps between living species, even bigger gaps in the fossil record, and positively enormous gaps between a great many elaborate organs and the primitive organs which are supposed to have preceded them. If the Creator had employed a continuous evolutionary process, we should expect to find smooth transitions everywhere, not a multitude of gaps... Although Genesis 1 is not free of problems... it speaks of a series of distinct acts of creation, and not one long continuous process. And it is hard to reconcile Christ's teaching about Genesis with theistic evolution." (Pg. 188)
He rejects Flood Geology: "Floods mix things up. If you have ever seen the aftermath of a flood... you will have been appalled by the chaos it has left behind... One look at an appropriate cliff or quarry face is enough. The separate strata lie on top of each other like the layers of a sandwich cake. The divisions between them are cleancut and distinct... Floods always create turmoil---but the earth's crust is full of structure and order. It simply cannot have been fashioned by the greatest flood of all time." (Pg. 193-194)
He observes, "We must be careful not to exaggerate the difficulty of reconciling Genesis with geology. Compared with all other ancient books, Genesis is superb... it creates a whole load of difficulties to insist that [the 'days' of Genesis 1] must be literal periods of twenty-four hours... The simplest solution is to assume that they merely stand for 'ages.' ... perhaps the 'days' were six occasions on which God issued edicts, or statements of intent... With these ... alternatives open to us, the six days do not present any real difficulty. We can still believe that Genesis is true, and also that the geologists are right about the long history of life on earth." (Pg. 196-197)
This is a well-argued book that is particularly good on the Creation/Evolution issue, that will be most appreciated by those accepting an "old" Earth.
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