CHARLES DARWIN AD 1809-1882
Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
In the Christian worldview God is the ultimate Judge of the earth as well as the standard of all morality. His judgment is based on morals and not, like Kevin Swanson brings out, on “some cold, necessity in a naturalistic-materialistic world.”
Charles Darwin entered Cambridge University in 1828 with the intent of preparing for the ministry. Darwin wrote that he “did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word of the Bible.” But, a radical change came into his mind, because later on he labored as hard as he could to eliminate every element of the Christian faith from his thinking. He then said that the Bible is “no more to be trusted than the beliefs of a barbarian.”
After 28 years of research, on November 24th, 1859 Darwin published his now famous book called The Origin of Species in which the first print sold out in one day. It was as if the world at that time was waiting for an intellectual aspect of our ‘being’ other than what the Bible gives us in Genesis 1. It would seem that Darwin met a market need that the modern world was looking for to take us away from the Christian faith and the biblical God. Though he could not disprove the existence of God he could provide another reason for our being.
Jesus gave us a maxim in Matthew 7:15-18 that we can use in testing all things said and done. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”
What was Charles Darwin like, who is still considered the most influential person in the world? From his own writings to friends he was a “twisted” individual and by his own testimony a sadist that took great pleasure in killing animals. It is said that he especially loved to kill birds by pounding on their heads with a hammer.
God says: “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” Proverbs 12:10
Darwin’s shares his testimony that his problems began at age 16 and by the time he was 28 he was almost incapacitated by his mental illnesses. Kevin Swanson in his book called APOSTATE said about Darwin that: “He suffered from depression, agoraphobia, insomnia, vision alterations, hallucinations, malaise, vertigo, shaking, tachycardia, fainting spells, shortness of breath, trembling, nausea, vomiting, dizziness. Muscle twitches, spasms, tremors, cramps and colics, bloating and nocturnal flatulence, headaches, nervous exhaustion, dyspnea, skin blisters, tinnitus, and sensations of loss of consciousness, and impending death.”
Dr. Jerry Bergman believes there was a strong connection between Darwin’s religious apostasy and his psychosis. Bergman writes, “His nagging, gnawing fear about murdering God caused a cold shudder to run through him because of his fear that he had devoted his life to a fantasy… an illusion, and a dangerous one at that.”
Yet, when we think of the considerable influence of this person in the modern world with all of his psychosis it does not say much about the modern world.
A good tree produces good fruit and bad tree bad fruit.
What is the fruit that this tortured man produced?
Regrettably, this man’s fruit has touched every person and nation as well as educational, cultural, religious, and political institutions that affect our lives.
The Descent of Man, a book that he wrote in 1871, opened the door to eugenics and the selective breeding to eliminate supposedly genetic weaknesses. This gave a reason for Hitler in the 20th century to try to produce “the super race.”
For Darwin, man is an animal with mental faculties that do not differ in kind although immensely in degree.
The biblical view of man in Psalm 8 would greatly disagree. “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” Psalms 8:4-8
Another aspect of the fruit that this man produced (and there were many) was the open door to ‘genocide,’ where we would eventually have the extermination of races, the handicapped and the inferior so to have the strongest living, so to speak.
We have entered a brave new world that fails to respect human life created in the image of God. We, as God’s people, should be concerned about the change in the worldview of the Western world. It is estimated that out of the 110 Christian universities, about half still teach creation by God and oppose evolutionary by Darwin. Why not all of them?
In all of the public and private universities only about 1% maintains a God-centered belief system. In Europe it is about the same, if not worse.
At one time Western Europe and America had the majority of Christians, but not today. Although we see an ebbing with Christianity in Europe, America, Australia and Canada, God is moving in a great way in Latin America, Africa and Asia. I believe that we have a temporary setback in the West, but God is on the move.
Charles Darwin, just like some other philosophers that have gone before, picked a fight with God and lost.
