Some popular apologists for cosmic evolution like to make the argument that because certain organs or processes in the biological world aren't perfect, this means they weren't created. We'd like to disagree.
Quotes and comment;
1. 'First, Dawkins levels the charge that much of what exists in nature is far from perfectly designed and is only good enough. [1.]
- The idea of perfection requires a standard, and since the evolutionist has no standard (for perfection) he's got no right to employ the term in his arguments. Perfection is an evaluation, and such valuation can only be made by a personal agent. In the case of the animal world, only the one who created the kinds knows what the standard of perfection is. When Genesis tells us god declared the creation to be very good, we assume this means perfect, but the text doesn't say this. When God says it was very good this means that the creation was what he intended it to be.
Dawkins plays the game of pretending he's never heard about the Fall, and that nowhere in the bible does it say (after the Fall) that anything is perfect; in fact it says the opposite, and points out the the whole earth is under a curse, and moans and travails...
It's unrealistic (unscientific?) to imagine a perfect creation would remain that way under conditions of entropy. One wonders what possible warrant e.s can have for demanding perfect 6,000 years after creation.
A common reason e.s give for rejecting creation is the idea x or y (e.g. the eye) isn't perfect. This is a strange and illegitimate argument, as they have taken a concept from geometry and applied it to living organisms. This is what we call a category mistake. There is no warrant for applying a geometric standard to something biological. (That said we know that there's not even any such thing as a perfect triangle; for geometry deals with 'imaginary' objects; and so it's perfection is ideal not physically real.)
The evolutionist claims that if god created everything it would be perfect. I'm not sure who first came up with this argument (and it has the whiff of ancient Greece about it) but it's simply fallacious. The argument depends upon men being able to know exactly who god is and how he would do things. If evolutionists read a little theology they'd know that this is not the Biblical view at all. Cornelius Van Til was from a line of thinkers who thought God was far beyond man's full comprehension.
This bit of Darwinian theology is a straw man argument, as there is nothing in the bible that would lead anyone to think this is a perfect world. (I can see how someone might get that idea if the first two chapters were as far in Genesis as they got, since there's a sense in which the world was perfect before the Fall; but after the Fall we are told the earth was cursed.)
As an aside; when God declares the creation to be good; to be very good, he isn't saying this in the sense he's surprised or pleased with how things came out, as if he were saying ''boy it came out as good as I'd hoped'' or somesuch. No; he's saying this for the benefit of mankind, as He is well aware of what is going to happen, and He wants to see that the blame for the coming 'imperfection' goes where it should.
We have no right to employ the standard of perfection to living organisms; and even more especially to man. Unfortunately this is what we so often do; and you can ride the train and hear people complain about the fact their jobs aren't perfect, their marriages aren't perfect, their lives aren't perfect, and so on. You'd think they were triangles and squares at heart, or had been so in a previous life. They then go about solving the problem of imperfection; getting rid of an imperfect mate and beginning a search for a perfect one, and so on.
It's interesting to me that the best the evolutionist can do to critique the Genesis account is to hold it up to a fallacious, unrealistic and bogus standard.
In an entropic universe there is no way that there could still be perfection 6,000 (or more) years after creation. No biblical creationist denies mutations and damage to the genome; the universe being what it is, this is inevitable. The bible does not say the world is perfect, and even the atheist is well aware that it doesn't. ("The creation moaneth and travaileth,'' we read in Romans.) The 'imperfections' that we see in the world (and in ourselves) are just what we would expect given the Genesis account of creation. (I seem to remember reading that each individual inherits as many as 60 mutations. At this rate there would have been a lot of damage in 6,000 years.)
One response you get from atheists is ''well since you people think all things are possible with god, then god could have maintained a perfect creation, and if he's all good, as you say, then he would have. Since the world isn't perfect god doesn't exist.''
This isn't science, it's speculation. It might be even be true that God could have done this, but we're told that this is not what he did. The whole creation fell under a curse because of man's sin. (This may have been more a matter of withholding of grace as it were, instead of an active curse. i.e. perfection might have required a continuing work on God's part to maintain it, and when the fall occurred God ended or curtailed this upholding of things.)
- M.D. Johnson
Notes;
1. River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life by Richard Dawkins - Reviewed by Raymond G. Bohlin
2. Perfect; adj
- early 13c., from O.Fr. parfit (11c.), from L. perfectus "completed," pp. of perficere "accomplish, finish, complete," from per- "completely" + facere "to perform" (see factitious). Often used in English as an intensive (perfect stranger, etc.). The verb meaning "to bring to full development" is recorded from late 14c.
A. Completely corresponding to a description, standard, or type: a perfect circle; a perfect gentleman.
- the general image is of a craftsman making some object (e.g. a chair) gradually putting it together, finishing it, perfecting it, making it as close to the model as possible. (We all know it won't stay 'perfect' for long :=} The Darwinist is in the hopeless position of trying to explain perfection as the result of a long line of accidents and chance events.
b. Being without defect or blemish: a perfect specimen.
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