The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

messenger RNA, translation), the role of language in the most basic functions of life is not often discussed. Given creation by a communicating God, Devotional Biology is free to discuss the language of life. C. Creationism Devotional Biology also adopts a creationist perspective of biological origins. In nearly every chapter, the text claims that naturalistic processes are unable to explain the major themes of biology, whereas creation by the God of Scripture does. Examples of critiques of naturalistic evolution from Devotional Biology include: (1) Unguided natural processes are not expected to produce the fine-tuning we see in the universe—not just the fine- tuning necessary for life, but the fine-tuning that allows humans to study and understand the universe; (2) In principle, physical processes cannot generate non-physical phenomena such as life, consciousness, emotion, will, humor, and self-awareness; (3) Neither natural processes nor human ingenuity has been able to create life or bring back to life any organism that is truly dead, nor generate anything as complex, efficient and microscopic as cellular metabolism; (4) Since, in our experience, life only comes from life, and no living cause is permitted in abiogenesis, the origin of life by abiogenesis requires processes outside of our experience; (5) In our experience, high complexity, elegance, and complex emergent properties only arise due to an intelligent designer. Yet, naturalistic evolution denies the existence of an intelligent designer in earth’s early history, so the origin of the elegant and collectively complex biogeochemical cycles, the complex emergent properties of biological systems, and the elegant and irreducibly complex metabolic systems and cells requires evolutionary processes outside of our experience; (6) Since, in our experience, language only arises from communicating beings, and naturalistic evolution denies the existence of a communicating being while life was coming to be, the language evident in human language, animal communication, programming of instinct, and the genetic language of DNA require evolutionary processes outside of our experience; (7) Since evolution in modern theory operates in a stepwise fashion, irreducible complexity (as in biological systems, cells, and cellular reproduction) seems impossible to explain by naturalistic evolution; (8) Evolution in modern theory operates too slowly to explain the large amount of disparity we see in the modern biological world; (9) The tree-like branching expected in biological evolution fails to explain discordances in similarity trees, homoplasies, and unclassifiable mosaics; (10) In a biological world ruled by natural selection, beauty and mutualism should be rare, and pathology should be dominant, but in our earth’s biology the opposite is true on both counts; and (11) Biological evolution lacks mechanisms to explain the origin of distinct varieties, breeds and cultivars (morphological information always hidden in natural populations), the maintenance of distinctions between species connected by long-lasting hybrid zones, and the commonness of parallelism and convergence in the modern biological world. Yet, Devotional Biology does not merely adopt a creationist perspective, it embraces a young-age creationist perspective. This is most markedly evident in chapter five’s discussion of the origin and nature of natural evil (as a consequence of the curse of Genesis 3), and chapter fifteen’s survey of the history of life (which includes creation, fall, global flood, and Babel dispersion). Also according to Devotional Biology , widespread inter-specific hybridization, rare pathology, low mutational loads, and the existence of vestigial organs and genetic throwbacks from old strata all indicate that life is young. The young-age creationist perspective of Devotional Biology would make the text objectionable to all but a very few institutions of higher learning. D. Holism Naturalistic biologists are reductionists almost by necessity. Naturalism denies purpose, designer, creator, and even non- material essences to guide or stimulate biological change. Natural processes cannot produce non-physical entities and they can produce only very mild complexity. At best, naturalists expect emergent properties to be rare. Consequently, naturalists have every reason to believe that a full understanding of the components of natural objects provides a full understanding of those objects. Thus, it is not surprising that secular biology texts tend to arrange their topics from the micro to the macro, from atoms and molecules in the second chapter (after the required ‘What is science?’ and ‘What is life?’ chapter) to communities and biomes in the last chapters. Devotional Biology takes the opposite approach. Since God is the starting point, ending point, and continued focus of Christian thought, the biblical worldview is inherently holistic. God is the ‘biggest’ thing there is, God created everything else that exists, God sustains everything that exists, and God defines the purpose for everything. Devotional Biology , then, assumes a holistic perspective of biology. It does this in its focus on and continual reference to God, and it does this by beginning each chapter with a discussion of God’s nature, and ending each chapter with our responsibility to God. But Devotional Biology also does this in its arrangement of chapters, dealing first with things readers are most familiar with (the life of organisms, and the beauty of the biological world), and relegating discussion of atoms and molecules until almost half-way through the text. E. Ethics The final distinguishing perspective of Devotional Biology is its focus on Christian responsibility. Chapter one not only provides reasons for why all Christians should study biology, it also makes the Christian aware of responsibilities believers have with respect to the creation. Devotional Biology argues that humans were created in the image of God so as to be priests and kings over the creation. In the Old Testament, priests were called to continually grow in their relationship with God, fill their lives with worship of God, fill the temple with worship of God, and bring others into that worship. Likewise, all believers have been called to continually grow in our relationship with God (through, among other things, their study of God’s creation), fill their lives with the worship of God, and bring others into that worship. At the same time, they have been called to rule over the creation. Stewards were given the belongings of their masters to protect and enhance those belongings, being always ready to give account for how well they took care of their master’s belongings. So, also, we have been given the creation of God to protect and enhance that creation’s glorification of God. As the exemplary kings of the Old Testament were shepherd kings who devoted themselves to the service of both their God and their subjects, so, also, we are to be shepherd kings Wise et al. ◀ Devotional Biology ▶ 2018 ICC 258