The Pacific Union Recorder Promoting Darwinian Evolution?

I was pretty surprised today to be sent this month’s copy of the Pacific Union Recorder, a Seventh-day Adventist publication representing the Pacific Union of the Church, containing an article written by Alberto Valenzuela, the Editor of the Recorder, entitled, “Honoring God Through Science and Scripture” (Link, Link). I was expecting a nice article supporting the Seventh-day Adventist perspective on Creation. What I actually read was the forceful promotion of Darwinian-style evolutionary arguments in favor of sentient creatures existing, evolving, suffering, and dying on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. Not since the years of La Sierra University promoting Darwinian evolution have I seen such blatant promotion of Darwinian evolution by an official Church organization. It just amazes me that I am compelled, yet again, to defend the official and historical position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church regarding a literal six-day Creation Week within relatively recent history, followed by a literal worldwide Noachian Flood that destroyed all land animal life on this planet, save that within Noah’s Ark – in the face of strong opposition from within.

Update (3/4/26):

As of today, the Pacific Union Recorder has removed Valenzuela’s article from the English version. Pages 22-25 have been deleted (Link), and the specific link to this article on the Pacific Union Conference website is now inactive (Link). However, the Spanish version is still posted on the Recorder’s website (Link), and is linked in the Pacific Union Conference archives of the Recorder (Link). Also, Valenzuela maintains his position as Editor of the Recorder, listed in the March edition, and even wrote another article, entitled “Fundamental Belief #24: God for Us: Hope, Assurance, and the Heavenly Sanctuary” (p. 8-9).

While there is some token progress being made, after a delay of a few weeks, additional progress is needed and encouraged. Like the English version, the Spanish version should also be removed and a public apology issued by the Recorder and the Pacific Union Conference, with some kind of assurance that a process where articles are vetted more carefully will be put in place going forward. Also, I’m sorry, but allowing Valenzuela to remain as the Editor of the Recorder is not a good idea at this point, nor is allowing him to continue to write articles for the Recorder. Is it not ironic that he now publishes an article promoting Fundamental Belief #24? after just thrashing Fundamental Beliefs 6 & 8? effectively undermining the very bedrock for our “Hope and Assurance”?

The Arguments:

As usual, the arguments presented aren’t new, but have been around for decades. The first has to do with the claim that believing in Darwinian evolution need not harm or reduce one’s faith in God. The other arguments presented have to do with the physical evidence that is commonly cited as being best explained by Darwinian-style evolution.

Darwinism Doesn’t Harm Faith in God:

Valenzuela starts off with the following quote:

“Let us begin by acknowledging what science has done for us. Through the gift of discovery, God has enabled humanity to extend life, cure diseases, travel across continents and even into space, and feed billions. From the smallest microchip to the largest space telescope, science has lifted our quality of life. These advances aren’t accidents — they’re the fruits of minds that God has gifted.”

Sure, scientific discoveries have significantly improved our lives. Scientific methodologies are very important when it comes to rationally investigating the world and universe in which we live. Science has helped us discover useful truths and knowledge regarding how to best function here. However, what Valenzuela doesn’t seem to understand is that not all of the opinions of popular scientists are scientific. Not uncommonly, scientists will promote philosophical ideas, particularly with regard to claims that cannot be directly observed and tested in a potentially falsifiable manner in observable time, claims regarding what supposedly happened millions of years ago based on strained extrapolations, as being based on the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence. In reality, what they’re actually doing is promoting philosophical and/or methodological naturalism – a type of religion that is not actually supported by the clear weight of real scientific evidence. Even if a scientist claims to believe in a God, even if he/she is a Christian, the promotion of Darwinian-style evolution over hundreds of millions of years is, fundamentally, a philosophical position that strikes directly at some of the key claims found in the Bible regarding the origin of life and its diversity on this planet.

The truth of the matter is that the claims of the Bible (regarding the deliberately designed nature of the diversity of life on this planet, a literal recent Creation Week less than 10k years ago, and a literal worldwide Noachian Flood) have the support of the weight of empirical scientific evidence, not Neo-Darwinism.

Pope John Paul II:

Valenzuela counters by quoting Pope John Paul II:

“Many devout Christians, including Pope John Paul II, have affirmed that the theory of evolution does not conflict with belief in God. In his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996, he said: “New findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis.” He reminded believers that acknowledging biological processes doesn’t negate God’s creative hand.”

The question that Valenzuela gets wrong here is not if Darwinian evolution excludes God, but what kind of picture of God does Darwinian-style evolution paint? If Darwinian evolution is true, then the God of the Bible is a sadistic liar. And, I’m not the only one who comes to this conclusion.

James Barr:

Take, for example, the comments of the well-known secular Oxford Hebrew scholar, James Barr:

“Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience, (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story, and (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be worldwide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”

Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson of the UK, dated 23 April 1984.

Consider that Prof. Barr made this statement while personally considering the Genesis narrative to be false. He did not believe that God created life on this planet in just six literal days. He believed that life existed and evolved on this planet over hundreds of millions of years, just like most mainstream scientists do today. Yet, he still was quite clear that the author(s) of the Genesis narrative intended to say something about real historical events. They did not intend to be figurative in their language. Now, it is quite a different thing to say that the Biblical authors were simply mistaken compared to the argument that suggests that they were intending to write symbolically or figuratively.

William Provine:

Or, consider the more pointed and direct observations of William Provine, late professor of biological sciences at Cornell University. A few years back, he gave a very interesting speech for a 1998 Darwin Day keynote address. As part of this speech, he explained the moral and philosophical implications of Darwinian Evolution – if followed to its most rational conclusion:

“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly:

- No gods worth having exist;
- No life after death exists;
- No ultimate foundation for ethics exists;
- No ultimate meaning in life exists; and
- Human free will is nonexistent.”

“In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism…”

“Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.”

Provine, William B. [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life”, Abstract of Will Provine’s 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.

Academe January 1987, pp.51-52

God is Love?

And, as best as I can tell, Provine was right. Sure, you can believe in a God and Neo-Darwinism at the same time, like Zeus or Odin or Thor, but your God won’t be the God of the Bible – the God of Love. I mean, how can a God of Love create a world that is full of suffering and death, hundreds of millions of years before humans ever evolved on this planet, and call that world “good”, much less “very good” (Genesis 1:31)? You’re talking about the suffering and death of untold billions of innocent creatures, before mankind sinned against God? Is that truly reflective of the God of the Bible, who is described as suffering when even a small sparrow falls wounded to the ground? and caring about even the animals of Nineveh (Matthew 10:29; Jonah 4:11)? Not only that, but a God who created via a Darwinian mechanism while claiming that He did it in just six literal days would be lying to us, for what reason? Really, it wouldn’t have been very hard to simply say that creation took vast eons of time – if that’s really what happened.

Really, what Darwinism does, and what Valenzuela is promoting here, is a situation where some of the strongest physical evidence in favor of God’s existence and in the credibility of the Bible as the very Word of God to humanity is significantly undermined. The basis of rational faith in God and His Word takes a huge hit when Darwinism is entertained. I, for one, if I ever became convinced of the truth of Neo-Darwinian evolution, would leave behind not only the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but Christianity as well. The logical inconsistencies would simply be too much for me. It is for this reason that I am very sympathetic to Darwinian evolutionists who are also atheists or at least agnostic in their thinking, since this is the most rational conclusion given the truth of Darwinism.

Still, truth is truth. Personally, I’d rather know the reality of a painful truth than live with a pleasant lie. So, what is this “overwhelming evidence” that seems so convincing to Valenzuela?

The Evidence:

Observed in Real Time:

Valenzuela puts Neo-Darwinian Evolution on the very same footing as physical sciences that can be observed and studied in real time. He argues:

“Theories like gravity, germ theory, atomic theory, and evolution are foundational, not speculative.”

Antibiotic Resistance:

And, to a certain degree, Valenzuela is right. Evolutionary changes, based on random mutation and natural selection, the Darwinian mechanism, can be observed and studied in real time. Take antibiotic resistance, for example (Link). Antibiotic resistance is based on random genetic mutations that can be preferentially selected based on function, on the “survival of the fittest”, very rapidly, in an antibiotic-rich environment. Antibiotic resistance is not only real, it can and does often evolve very rapidly within a population of bacteria. The specific mutations that cause the evolution of antibiotic resistance can be determined as well. It’s all a matter of uncontrovertible fact. It’s observable Darwinian-style evolution in action – no question.

Humpty Dumpty:

So, there you go, evolution is a fact since it can be observed in action in real time. The problem here is that this type of evolution is based on the loss of a pre-existing interaction between antibodies and antigens. Change the antigen just slightly in a multitude of different ways, and the antibody will not attach to it as well, and a degree of antibiotic resistance is suddenly gained. It’s like breaking Humpty Dumpty. It’s so easy to do because there are so many ways to do it.

Never Observed:

Evolution of The Bacterial Flagellar Motor:

Now, consider what it would take to evolve something that is not based on the loss or disruption of a pre-existing interaction, something that requires a minimum number of different parts working together in a specific arrangement at the same time – like a bacterial flagellar motility system that requires around 40 different types of protein parts all working in a specific 3D arrangement at the same time. The problem with this type of evolution is that there simply are not enough viable, potentially beneficial “stepping stones” at this level of functional complexity. The amount of time required to evolve any one of the multitude of required steps along any proposed evolutionary pathway requires far far too much time – trillions upon trillions of years! (Link)

And, that’s the basic problem with the Darwinian mechanism in a nutshell. It just doesn’t work beyond the very lowest levels of function complexity in what anyone would consider to be a reasonable amount of time. All of the examples of evolution in action that are given are all low-level examples. There are no observable examples of evolution in action that require more than a couple of hundred specifically arranged amino acid residues. It’s just that the minimum gap distance in sequence space between stepping stones rapidly gets too wide for evolutionary mechanisms to cross – this side of a practical eternity of time. It just doesn’t happen and, statistically, cannot have happened.

Kenneth Miller’s Arguments:

Yet, Valenzuela quotes well-known Christian evolutionists, such as Kenneth Miller, who argue that such things can easily happen.

“Likewise, Kenneth Miller, a professor of physics at Brown University, states that “rigid creationists look for God in what science cannot explain, while scientists who are religious look for God in what science does understand and explain.”

Yes, Kenneth Miller is a Catholic Christian and an evolutionist. He has proposed, decades ago, ways to get complex multipart systems to evolve via random mutation and function-based selection. As one of the stepping stones toward flagellar evolution, for example, he proposed an intermediate stepping stone known as the Type III Secretory System (TTSS) – a bacterial toxin injector comprise of around 10 of the 40 required proteins in the flagellar system (Link). Of course, like flightless birds on windy islands or cavefish without eyes, those systems that require fewer parts to work came into existence after the more complex systems. That’s right, the TTSS system devolved from the fully formed bacterial flagellar motility system, not the other way around – just like cavefish without eyes devolved from fish with eyes and flightless birds devolved from birds that could fly. You see, again, it is far far easier to devolve downhill than it is to evolve uphill because there are so many many more ways to break Humpty Dumpty compared with the very few ways to put him back together again, starting with all of the broken pieces – even if a few of the broken pieces may have some kind of useful lower-level function.

Here’s a video of a talk I gave in 2013 on this topic – starting at 27:00:

See also my detailed 2007 review of Kenneth Miller’s arguments: Link

Going Downhill:

Another major problem for Neo-Darwinism is that all complex multicellular organisms, such as humans, apes, dogs, cats, and all mammals, birds, and reptiles, are degenerating over time. The detrimental genetic mutation rate is simply far too high for any reasonable reproductive rate to overcome. The detrimental mutation rate is so high, in fact, that humans would have gone extinct within less than a million years if we had actually been around that long… as would chimps/apes, etc. This problem, by itself, strikes a fatal blow at the heart of Neo-Darwinism, but falls right in line with the Biblical account of the Fall and a subsequent rapid degeneration of an originally perfect creation of life on this planet within recent history. This has been detailed in John Sandford’s book “Genetic Entropy”. See also: Link

The Fossil Record:

But what about the fossil record? Are the “missing links” being discovered all the time? Valenzuela argues:

“Let’s consider one example: the fossil record. Creationists often claim that evolution is false because there are “gaps” in the fossil timeline. But those gaps are steadily being filled. The fossil Tiktaalik, discovered in 2004, is a stunning example—a creature that bridges the gap between fish and land animals, exactly as evolutionary predictions suggested. That is not chance—it is evidence.”

Tiktaalik is a unique lobe-finned fish designed with gills, fin rays, and fishy body scales. And, there are other similar lobe-finned fish living today (like the Coelacanth, a “living fossil” that was also once claimed to be a “missing link” between fish and early land-dwelling tetrapods, but never ventures out on land). There are also fish alive today that can walk with their fins underwater (like the red-lipped batfish in the video clip below) or on land – surviving outside of water for fairly long periods of time (like the mud skipper). Lungfish are also noted to use their hind fins to push their bodies up from the substrate and propel themselves forward. So, Tiktaalik is not unique in this regard. It’s not even unique with regard to its alligator-like head, which resembles a modern alligator gar (see below). Also, subsequently discovered details are a bit problematic for Tiktaalik being such a clear “missing link” as Valenzuela claims. In 2014, evolutionary science writer Colin Schultz stated that Tiktaalik had “mobile rear fins,” not legs (Link). In addition, “a diagram of the fossilized pelvis —while elaborate and enlarged—clearly shows that it’s not attached to the spinal column as one would expect with a true tetrapod” (Link). See also: Link

In short, it really doesn’t matter. What if there really were a fish-like creature that had lungs and actual feet with a pelvis to support real legs. What would that really prove? Without a viable evolutionary mechanism, one is left with the only rational conclusion that any such creature would have had to have been deliberately designed and created by an intelligent designer. If this designer created such creatures over millions of years of time to suffer and die, then that designer would be evil. If, however, the Designer created such creatures in an initially perfect world without suffering or death for sentient creatures, then that Designer would match the God described by the Bible.

Evidence for Young Age:

Beyond this, the weight of the evidence from the Fossil Record and Geologic Column strongly supports the Biblical story of a worldwide Noachian-style Flood within relatively recent history. Take, as one of a great many examples, that most large dinosaur bones contain soft tissues with sequenceable proteins and even fragments of DNA, as well as measurable amounts of radiocarbon. None of these should exist if these bones are more than a few tens of thousands of years old (Link, Link). Consider also that dinosaur eggs, worldwide, show features that are most consistent with a worldwide watery catastrophe (Link).

The Geologic Column, some of which can be very clearly seen in places like the Grand Canyon, shows very clear generalized features of rapid catastrophic formation, worldwide, to include a striking lack of expected surface erosion between layers (Link, Link), with a lack of expected bioturbation (Link), as well as a lack of erosion along the edges of continents worldwide (Link, Link) and the catastrophic formation of the Grand Canyon itself after the Flood (Link). There are also continent-wide “paleocurrents” created by flowing water that are found in the layers within the geologic column – all pointing in the same direction (Link). Even the sand that forms some of the most prominent sandstone layers of the Grand Canyon was transported, by water, across the entire continent of North America (Link). The uphill vertebrate trackways within the layers of the Grand Canyon also support the Noachian account (Link), as does the lack of expected ocean sediment worldwide (Link). And, the list goes on and on.

For more information on the science of Creation, see my website at DetectingDesign.com.

Intelligent Design Not Valid Science?

“The danger with Intelligent Design is not its affirmation of a Creator—it is that it masks theology as science. It doesn’t follow the scientific method. It doesn’t make testable predictions. As such, it is not science—and trying to present it as such in schools only weakens our witness and our credibility. Science can study the design. Faith tells us who the Designer is.”

Valensuela’s argument here defines “faith” as a type of blind irrational belief that has no basis in empirical evidence or understanding. Why have belief, much less faith, in God if it is rationally impossible to clearly recognize His Signature anywhere within His own Creation? Even King David noted that the Signature of God is clearly recognizable in the works of His Hands:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” – Psalms 19:1

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” – Psalms 139:14

Paul also argued that God’s nature is made visible to us by the things that He has made:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. – Romans 1:20

Clearly then, Biblical “faith” isn’t blind. It is based on a foundation of the clear weight of empirical evidence that appeals to the candid mind. God does not expect anyone to believe in Him without first providing a rational basis to believe and accept His claims. A prime example of this is the fact that the faith of the disciples of Jesus was not firmly established until after the empirical evidence of His Resurrection. They didn’t just believe based on blind faith, but upon the weight of strong empirical evidence that God gave the Church, down to the present day, for the Resurrection of Jesus. Paul explained the significance of the evidence of the Resurrection with regard to a rational Christian faith:

“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” – 1 Corinthians 15:14

And, as Ellen White also explained:

“God gives sufficient evidence for the candid mind to believe; but he who turns from the weight of evidence because there are a few things which he cannot make plain to his finite understanding will be left in the cold, chilling atmosphere of unbelief and questioning doubts, and will make shipwreck of faith” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, pp. 232, 233).

The fact of the matter is, as demonstrated above, the detection of intelligent design behind a given phenomenon can be done in a scientific manner that is testable in a potentially falsifiable way, unlike the claims of Neo-Darwinism, which cannot be conclusively tested in such a definitively falsifiable manner. After all, how is it even possible to test that a “missing link” in the fossil record really is a missing link in a definitively falsifiable manner? or that a given complex feature of a living thing was the actual product of a mindless naturalistic mechanism? These “theories” are simply based on extrapolations that are not themselves subject to definitive testing in a falsifiable manner.

Consider that there are different types of explanations in science… all of which are “natural” in their own sphere – but are clearly within different “spheres” or “levels” of what might be considered “natural”. For example, consider a highly symmetrical polished granite cube that measures 25 cm along each edge – with perfectly symmetrical geometric etchings (like triangles, squares, hexagons, etc.) carved into the middle of each face of the cube. What would be the best scientific explanation for the origin of such a granite cube? Let’s say that one of our robotic rovers on Mars happened to come across such a granite cube sitting right there on the surface of Mars. Would not the vast majority of scientists recognize such a granite cube as a true artifact of deliberate design? Of course, they would, and so would everyone else with a candid mind. It would hit the front page of every newspaper in the world with the heading, “We are NOT Alone!” – and for very good reason.

Clearly, the best and most reasonable explanation or hypothesis for such a phenomenon would require the involvement of at least human-level intelligent design. How so? Because, there are no known mindless natural mechanisms that could come close to doing the job, while, at the same time, it is known that at least human-level intelligence is capable of easily producing such things. Given these two pieces of knowledge, the hypothesis of intelligent design becomes the best scientific explanation among the competing options – the explanation with the best “predictive power”. The same is true for stacked rocks or William Paley’s famous watch analogy in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.

After all, this argument forms the very basis of various modern scientific disciplines such as forensic science, anthropology, and even SETI science. All of these modern sciences are entirely based on the human ability to rationally detect the workings of intelligent design behind various phenomena that are, or that might be seen in nature. In fact, mainstream scientists, in general, have no problem with the detection of intelligent design as long as the proposed designer isn’t God.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the designer of the granite cube or the SETI radio signal was God or any other supernatural being. It’s much more likely that if such phenomena were ever discovered, that some form of “natural alien intelligence”, similar to humans perhaps, produced these “artifacts” of intelligent design – right? This is a very reasonable argument, to be sure. However, consider that not everyone who is intelligent is at the same level of intelligence. Some phenomena, while requiring intelligence to explain (like our granite cube), do not require very high levels of intelligence to explain. Could God or a God-like being have been responsible? Sure! However, the hypothesis of God-like intelligence and creative power is not required to explain the origin of such a granite cube. Much lower levels of intelligence would work just fine.

However, let’s say that our Mars rover came across something that looked very much like a mechanically-intricate spaceship. Let’s even say that, after investigation, it was discovered that technology previously unknown to us, and perhaps still very mysterious, was used by the creators of this spaceship to enable the spaceship, and anything inside of it, to go back in time. Clearly, not only would such a spaceship be very excellent evidence that its creators were highly intelligent, it would strongly suggest that they were a great deal more intelligent, or at least had access to a much higher level of knowledge, than humans currently have. So, one might reasonably argue that even if we might not yet be able to understand how such technology works, we can or could detect that whoever produced such a spaceship had greater intelligence and/or technological advancement compared to us. Of course, this doesn’t mean that these very advanced intelligent beings were “supernatural” or at all God-like! – right? Of course not. Would a God or God-like being be required to explain the origin of such a spaceship? Not necessarily.

However, what would it take before one could be rationally suspicious that a particular phenomenon could only be explained by a level of intelligence and creative power that, from our finite perspective at least, would be indistinguishable from what we would expect from a God or a God-like being?

This is what many modern physicists are asking. That’s right, many, and probably most, modern physicists believe that God, or at least a God-like being, is responsible for the origin of the fine-tuned features of the universe in which we live. In order for the universe to be inhabited by intelligent beings of any kind, it has to achieve an extremely high level of precise fine-tuning for large numbers of variables known as “fundamental constants”. Obviously, intelligent design was required to achieve a level of fine-tuning far beyond what any spaceship would require to function. What type of intelligence and creative power could produce such a thing? Call it “natural” if you want, but I certainly couldn’t tell the difference if this “natural” intelligence told me, “By the way, I’m also God.” What would I say to that? I simply couldn’t tell the difference and would have no basis to argue otherwise. And, who knows, perhaps God is just as “natural” as you and me? – just on a different level of what might be defined as “natural”. After all, I’m sure that God, given that he exists, considers his own level of intelligence and creative power perfectly “natural” from his own perspective.

Such conclusions aren’t just “value judgments” beyond noting that there are, in fact, different levels of intelligence and that some phenomena in nature require extraordinarily high levels of intelligence and creative power to explain.

So, Valenzuela is simply mistaken here. The hypothesis of intelligent design can be forwarded in a scientific manner to explain various phenomena found in the world around us. There are numerous scientific disciplines that do this very thing. Excluding the origin and/or the diversity of living things, a priori, is not rational unless a viable mindless naturalistic mechanism is actually discovered. As shown above, the proposed Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection simply isn’t up to the job beyond the very lowest levels of functional complexity that we see within living things. That means, then, just like determining that the intricate machinery of a wristwatch or a spaceship required intelligent input, the same is rationally and scientifically true when it comes to correctly interpreting the origin of the intricate and diverse machinery of living things.

The “Bommon Line”:

In this light, consider the following exchange that took place during an interview with the well-known theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss:

Brierley:

Do you see any evidence of purpose in the universe?

Krauss:

Well maybe I would believe if the stars lined up to spell out a message from God

Brierley:

Actually no, that wouldn’t be evidence for God on your multiverse view. If there an infinite number of universes existing for an infinite amount of time, then anything can happen no matter how unlikely it is therefore, no evidence could convince you that God exists, since the unobservable, untestable, eternal multiverse can make anything it wants.

Krauss:

That’s a true statement… You talk about this god of love and everything else. But somehow if you don’t believe in him, you don’t get any of the benefits, so you have to believe. And then if you do anything wrong, you’re going to be judged for it. I don’t want to be judged by god; that’s the bottom line (podcast: 58:01).

Justin Brierley, ‘Unbelievable: A Universe From Nothing? Lawrence Krauss vs. Rodney Holder’

(Lawrence Krauss in 2012 debate with Rodney Holder – Course director at the Faraday Institute, Cambridge.) (Link, Link)

So, there it is in a nutshell. The “bottom line” really isn’t a scientific argument at all, but a philosophical position where anything that avoids letting God in the door, that appears to avoid moral responsibility and judgment, is accepted regardless of how nonsensical it may be.

Testimony of Ellen White:

Valenzuela may not be aware of these things. After all, he is not a scientist (he has a bachelor’s degree in theology from Southern Adventist University and a master’s in Church History from Loma Linda University) and the information that he cites is decades old. However, as a leader in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with a master’s in Church History from LLU, he should be very well aware of what the SDA Church and Ellen White have to say about this topic. He therefore has no valid excuse for what he published in a prominent SDA journal.

Consider also that, at least for Seventh-day Adventists and the leadership of the Church, it should matter what Ellen White has to say about Darwinian Evolution and the notion that life has existed and evolved on this planet over the course of hundreds of millions of years. After all, who was more inspired by God with privileged information regarding the origins of our world? – Ellen White or Pope John Paul II?

Although a fan of true scientific research and investigation, Ellen White wrote extensively about the literal nature of the Creation Week (Patriarchs and Prophets, Chapter 9) and the literal worldwide nature of Noah’s Flood (Chapter 7) and how it destroyed all land animal life save for what was on the Ark – and extensively reworked the surface of the Earth (Link).

“God is the author of science,” and therefore, “rightly understood, science and the written word agree, and each sheds light on the other.” (CT 426)

“Science, so-called, and religion will be placed in opposition to each other, because finite men do not comprehend the power and the greatness of God.” (Ev 593)

“The Bible recognizes no long ages in which the earth was slowly evolved from chaos. Of each successive day of creation, the sacred record declares that it consisted of the evening and the morning, like all other days that have followed. At the close of each day is given the result of the Creator’s work.” (PP, 111-112)

“I was then carried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week. The great God in his days of creation and day of rest, measured off the first cycle as a sample for successive weeks till the close of time. . . . On the seventh day of the first week God rested from his work, and then blessed the day of his rest, and set it apart for the use of man. The weekly cycle of seven literal days, six for labor, and the seventh for rest, which has been preserved and brought down through Bible history, originated in the great facts of the first seven days.” (SG, vol. 3, pp. 90-92)

“Geology has been thought to contradict the literal interpretation of the Mosaic record of the creation. Millions of years, it is claimed, were required for the evolution of the earth from chaos; and in order to accommodate the Bible to this supposed revelation of science, the days of creation are assumed to have been vast, indefinite periods, covering thousands or even millions of years. Such a conclusion is wholly uncalled for. The Bible record is in harmony with itself and with the teaching of nature.” (Ed 128-129)

“God created man in His own image. Here is no mystery. There is no ground for the supposition that man was evolved by slow degrees of development from the lower forms of animal or vegetable life. Such teaching lowers the great work of the Creator to the level of man’s narrow, earthly conceptions. Men are so intent upon excluding God from the sovereignty of the universe that they degrade man and defraud him of the dignity of his origin.” (PP, p. 45)

“I have been shown that without Bible history, geology can prove nothing” (3SG 93). Ellen G. White acknowledged that “the bones of human beings and of animals found in the earth, are much larger than those of men and animals now living” and added that “the time of their existence, and how long a period these things have been in the earth, are only to be understood by Bible history.” (3SG 93)

Breaking a Sacred Trust:

Regardless of one’s opinion regarding the truth of Neo-Darwinism or Creationism, God-included or not, the fact of the matter is that Alberto Valenzuela is clearly out of line with the official position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on this topic. Therefore, I do not understand why he was entrusted with a leadership position as a paid representative of the SDA Church unless no one actually knew that he held such views ahead of time. Certainly, someone who promotes views that are fundamentally opposed to the basic pillars of the SDA Church should not be the Editor of one of the main Journals of the Church. The Pacific Union Recorder is distributed to ~76,000 homes of church members (Link), which is not insignificant. Church leadership needs to act quickly to resolve this problem, to include retracting the article and publishing a rebuttal. After all, Valenzuela’s article strikes directly at what the Church stands for as a fundamental part of the Gospel Message of Hope that we, as a church organization, are striving to share with the world.

Educate Truth

– Evolution vs. Creation

The Pacific Union Recorder Promoting Darwinian Evolution?