Re: classic arguments

Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@UNCWIL.EDU)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 12:50:14 -0500 (EST)

At 07:12 PM 12/9/97 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>At 09:06 AM 12/9/97, Moorad Alexanian wrote:
>
>>Explaining origins is not the same as theorizing as we now do. It seems that
>>two facts are hard to reconcile with evolution and that is the creation in
>>the image of God and the Genesis account of the creation of man. Christ
>>could have put down man very easily by saying that man evolved from lower
>>forms of animals. But He did not. Why?
>
>I noticed the term "put down man" as if being evolved from animals is a
>denigrating thing. I would like to point out that actually the Bible says we
>were formed, ultimately, from something even lower than animals. We were
>formed from dirt. Dirt does not even possess the quality of life. Dirt is,
>well, dirty. When wet it is muddy.We take baths every day to wash the dirt
>off of us. No one wants us around them when we are dirty. Dirt is not very
>intelligent and can not perform trained tricks as animals can. Why is it
>such a shame to be formed from animals rather than dirt?

When someone uses the term "behaving as an animal" to describe behavior we
do not approve in others, I am the first to say that that is offensive to an
animal since animals have no sin whereas man does. My point is that
Scripture does say that our achievements are like filthy rags and so the
wisdom of man comes when he realizes that his value is that Christ died for
him and not that he have a value which he achieved by his own
accomplishments. Man's creation from the hands of God is a noble origin. The
view of evolution borders, at best, on deism

>A friend of mine, a local creationist wrote:
>
>"If people really did evolve from monkey-like creatures, then the questin
>arises, 'What about the Virgin Mary? Was Mary, the human mother of the Lord
>jesus, composed of made-over monkey genes?' If Mary was a highly evolved,
>distant relative of monkeys, then is our Lord also genetically related to
>the primates? Mary was created in the image of God, not in the lineage of
>monkeys." Jobe Martin, The Evolution of a Creationist.(Rockwall: Biblical
>Discipleship Publishers, 1994), p. 15
>
>So is it so much better for Mary and thus Jesus to be made-over dirt? Is
>that really a higher view of man to know that he is related to dirt? The
>image of God is not a physical thing, but many anti-evolutionists act like
>the image is a material thing as Jobe seems to do above. If we have
>monkey-genes, we can't be in the image of God. Considering that 98% of our
>genetic material is identical to the chimpanzee's genetic material, I would
>say that we are 98% chimp.

I believe that man and chimps are paintings painted by the same artist using
the same brush and the same oils but the nature of the paintings are totally
different.

Moorad