D:
Doctor Morris, I am very happy to be here. I know that you continue to be very busy. You mentioned that you are writing an article about intelligence design. What is it that you writing about? Why it is so important?
M:
Let me first say “hello” to all my friends in the Netherlands. We have had many contacts over the years, I really appreciate the relationship. I consider your people strong colleagues in this world of creation, evangelism and the application of truth of biblical information in society. It’s the intelligent design group. They try to be scrupulously secular. They don’t want the Bible. They don’t want to start with Christian subjects. They do not want to talk about creation. And yet they talk about intelligent design. There is obvious design in all-living things, in particular the cell, the human body, the eye. The design is far beyond, any thing you can possibly process and so that they focus on that design. But they refuse to say who the designer might be. (See Romans 1:18-23) I have many close friends in the design intelligence design movement. Many are Christians, many are not and many are basically agnostics. Some are New Agers. The Intelligence Design is a big umbrella and has a lot of perspectives. Sometimes they ask us to join with them in the work that they doing. For us, as a Christian organisation, The Institute for Creation Research, we as scientists also care about design. We see the design in creation. We ascribe it to the account given in the Bible. It is not just design it is Biblical creation designed by the God of the Bible just as it says in the Bible. We are Christians serving in a Christian organisation. We are also scientists, but Christians first and foremost. So while we apply the work of intelligent design it is not our work. We borrow from them. We trade information. But it’s not our work. We have different goals.
D:
Why is the intelligent design group so afraid of creationism?
M:
Here in the United States the situation is different then in some other countries. I do not know the specifics on how things are in the Netherlands. I think it’s more open there. Here in the USA the government has insisted that our public schools be completely secular. That means that there can be no more Christian influence in the classroom. Christianity is being removed from the public arena. Crosses, symbols of Christian faith, are being removed from courthouses and from prominent hill-sites that are visible from our highways. Christmas displays are removed in favour of purely secular displays. This is a sad time in American history. This country was founded on Christian principals by Christian leaders. By demand of the courts and the legislators this country has become very secular. And so the Intelligence Design people recognize that this is the way it is today in this country. The strategy of Intelligent Design presumes that pure secular science supports design. And that refutes the idea that natural processes alone account for all nature. In summary, Evolutionism is the religion of atheistic naturism. They hold that only natural processes are involved. The Intelligent Design folks have chosen a completely secular strategy. They will NEVER identify the Designer; never give their opinions on this.
Many of these are Christian men and women and I know them. And I know that it really hurts them not to talk about their Lord and Saviour when it is obvious that this is what they are talking about. But this is their strategy, their chosen strategy and to some degree they are making an impact. I do not feel that it is a winning strategy. I doubt that God is pleased if we ignore Him. In the Bible Paul says: ‘I am not afraid of the Gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe” (Romans 1:18-19) It is divine power therefore I cannot be ashamed. And so here we are Christians and we. are scientists? We do our scientific work as Christians and therefore we give God the glory for what He has done.
D:
Is the secular Intelligence Design scientist coming to acknowledge that God is the Designer?
M:
Many secular scientists are seeing it. They have to see it. It is there. They have to close their eyes not to see the design of the cell if not the parts of the cell. Any aspect of life is so amazingly complex. I mean, as an example, we are looking into this video camera. And yet the human eye is much more complex then a video camera. And video cameras do not come about by chance. I mean natural processes will never produce a video camera. But evolution says that natural processes have produced things much more complex then video camera.
This is bad science. Even a non-Christian, a non-creationist can see design in the cell or in the eye or in whatever. If they are honest they will admit that they see it. They may not feel comfortable in ascribing it to the God of the Bible. But they see the design and insist that this concept is not be censured from our schools as it always has been. It should be taught. This is having effect. We are introducing this concept of design into the schools.
D:
But how are they including the intelligent design idea in their evolutionary theory? What is their reasoning for that?
M:
The evolutionist also sees the design, but he ascribes it to natural selection. Where, as I look into the cell and I say, “Isn’t God wonderful, to have done this?” They say, “Oh, look at this design; isn’t natural selection wonderful to have done this?” And this is a very important point. The issue is not specially a scientific issue. Scientists on both sides can see that design. It is just how you explain it. Either it is naturalism or it is supernaturalism. Is it the supernatural God of the Bible or is it just natural processes? I believe that the better alternative, the better choice between these two: Is there a design behind it all? Is there is a Designer behind all that has done? Has he done this creation on purpose? Is there intelligence behind it all? That is why we are using the term Intelligent Designer, not the random selection of natural selection, which cannot, which has never produced order. Something else must be behind it, and, it must be an Intelligent Designer.
D:
Do you think this will be the end of the Theory of Evolution?
M: I wish that it were the end of the evolution theory, I don’t think so. I know it is not the end because I believe that Evolution is a religion. It is the religion of naturalism. It is the religion of anti-supernaturalism. The very reason evolution exists, I think, is not to explain the scientific evidence. The reason this naturalistic idea exists is to try to explain the fact that you and I are here without a God to whom we are accountable for our choices and our actions. You see, the Bible tells us that we must stand before that Creator God someday and give an account of our actions and choices. However, if we are here by natural processes alone, then there is no Law-keeper who gives the Law, which we must obey. He has the authority to set the rules over His creation. He imports to human life great value as representing the very image of God. Our job is to recognize this, to give Him glory and abide by that way of thinking. You see these are two religions that war with each other. Simple evidence for one might be evidence against the other. But it will not destroy the other because it is a faith-based system. It says believe. They believe in evolution it in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
It helps for those who are on the fence, who are still undecided to see this evidence, to encourage them to recognize that that there is Intelligence behind the design. Then we may perhaps talk about the identity of that Intelligence.
D:
I think, after listening to you, the evolutionist will be very angry.
M:
In this creation/evolution controversy you have to develop we call that a thick skin. You have to be immune to these attacks, because they come. The attacks are sometimes nasty. Faithfully we have not suffered physical attacks very often. But exclusion from the scientific establishment happens all the time. We try to please God, not them.
D:
In Christian circles, I also question people who say, ”When we talk about science, we should exclude spiritual mentioning of God.” I say, rather, that we should begin with the scientific evidence and go on from there to God and thereby disarm the evolutionist.
M:
There are many Christians who argue with God. I can’t explain that and I certainly cannot support it. Those Christians who are involved in the Intelligent Design movement have this perspective. They say,” Let’s use this strategy to crack open the door” And once it is opened it means we can slip Christianity in. Maybe - I don’t agree. I think that as Christians we must have a different strategy. We must be open about our belief. We must show the world that their beliefs sometimes blind them to the truth. They deny their own belief system, which is very obvious, and it dictates their conclusions. We would like to change all that!
D:
Is it not strange that in spite of all the evidence available, not only Intelligent Design but also increasing scientific development, that evolutionists are still so dogmatic in their theory? What can we do about it?
M:
The only way to understand evolution and evolutionists in the way they think and act is to recognize that this is a religion. It’s their religion. And they are going to believe it no matter what the evidence is. This becomes very obvious as we see how evolution is applied in some of the issues in society. Take the abortion issue. I mean it’s very obvious that this infant in the mother’s womb is a human baby. And now that we can do cloning and fertilization, we are working at the cell level. Even before the cell divides it’s obviously a human being. It has the entire DNA for a human. The more we learn in this area, the more human the results are! And yet they cry out to destroy the image of God. It is more then just a women’s choice, it is more, and it is only the inconvenience caused by an unwanted pregnancy or an unwanted child.
And it is even more then that. I really think it is an integrated issue. I really do see it that way. You will remember that in the beginning when God was creating, He created Satan too [1] He created the Angels and Satan was the number one angel. He was the highest in the hierarchy. And then God created man and called man: ”the image of God.[2]” He never said that about the angels. All of God’s attention is focused upon man expressed through God’s love and grace. In communicating with man and with the angels, God told the angels to minister to the man. Satan must, at that point, have turned against God. He said, “Oh no. I will establish my throne above the throne of God. I am going to be as God. I am going to kick Him out!” And so he rebelled. Well God cast him to earth. I think what happened then is that Satan came to earth where man had been given dominion. And now Satan is here. He rages against God because he hates God. God has kicked him out of heaven and it looks as though God is going to win. So in a rage against God Satan turns his attention to man who is the image of God. Since then Satan has delighted in harming man, taking him down, even into death. And how much delight he must have with abortion, killing all those innocent little babies. Infanticide and now euthanasia!
Evolution is the cult of death. It is fuelled by death. The survival of the fittest really means the death of the unfit. It’s the concept of death. Death holding sway for millions of years. Of all things! They say that 99.9 % of all things will become extinct just so that the more fit will survive. I think that this is a very satanic concept! He himself said, “I will be as GOD!” You oppress and you will be as god. That is the evolutionary concept. And he has used that widely, that man can be equal with GOD, that man can lever himself to a godlike status. And yet he delights in doing harm to man. His weapons are sin, cancer and death along with the horror and extinction of the holocaust. He is delighted in it I am certain because he is harming man who reveals the image of God. I think that we have to raise the stakes a little bit. It’s more then just the young woman making a choice to abort or not. It’s a satanic concept. That has been played out. However, not everyone knows that this is happening. Most people are involved in simple daily activities whatever their decisions might be. But I think behind it all, is a satanic inspired idea that he wants to destroy the image of God and become king himself some day.
D:
If I understand you correctly, you say that many Christians don’t see a strong connection between evolution and Satan. They think that the baby is an evolutionary creation. They are not going so deep into demonic activities!
M:
Now I don’t want to push that too far because the Bible does not give all those details.
However, I think it fits together that way. It is interesting that if you ask a devoted abortion rights supporter, “Give me the scientific justification of the logic behind killing what appear to be human babies,” they always want to use evolution. Or they will give you logical reasons for homosexual behaviour, for racism or for euthanasia. When they do this, they always use evolution to justify their position. They say certain animal groups are doing it. We humans are animals they say. We cannot stray from those animal instincts. It has become our sense of right and wrong. Animals got us were we are; let’s apply animal behaviour to human behaviour. Since animals do this, so should we. Evolution as a way of thinking is very evil.
The Bible says, “By their fruit you shall know them.” The fruits of evolution have been FREE EVIL. Now, in many cases, those within the Christian realms or who claim to be Christians try to use the Bible to justify wrong thinking. An example of this was racism. While some Christians have supported racism, even using the Bible to justify it, this is an ill use of the Bible. The Bible does not even have the word ‘race’ in it. Race is not a biblical concept.
The Bible speaks of languages and tribes and nations as stemming basically from the Tower of Babel, which in itself was, again, a rebellion against God. As these nations went out into the world, some of them acquired special racial characteristics that we now see as certain ethnic characteristics. But there is no specific race! There is only one race, the human race! The Bible says in Acts chapter 17 that God has made of one blood all nations on the earth to dwell. One blood. We all go back to Adam and Eve. We all go back to Noah. We all are sinners. We all need a Saviour. And Jesus Christ came to die to pay the penalty for the sins of individuals. There will be tribes and nations standing around the throne of God. For all eternity we will be individuals, members of all the world’s tongues, tribes and nations, glorifying God for all that He has done. The concept of race is not a Biblical concept. But it’s an evolutionary concept. In fact, Darwin’s book The origin of Species is subtitled “The preservation of favoured races and the truckle of life” Some sub-species are more highly evolved then other sub-species.
It is this thinking has led to bigotry and the concept of racial superiority. You know, Hitler picked up Darwin’s book and saw that here was the justification for his insistence that the Arian sub-species were the most highly evolved. He used Darwin’s book to justify killing what he felt were inferior races. The fruits of evolution are simply devastating. By their fruits you shall know them says the Bible. We can recognize evolution as a wrong concept by noting that it is a satanically inspired religion the religion of Naturalism!
D:
Where we do you expect to be in five years in this whole debate?
M:
We as Christians see that the evolution vs. creation controversy has come a long way. I well remember in 1961 when my father Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. John Witcomb published that groundbreaking book: The Genesis Flood. We looked at that as the beginning of the modern creation movement. I was a teenager when that book was written. I remember that my father had a very difficult time finding any other scientist to read the manuscript! It was a dead issue at that time. There where no creationists in the world. I mean, I say none, but there were so very few that we ourselves did not know of any! He did not know of any. There are now tens of thousands creationist scientists and hundreds of creationists organisations, publications, books, DVD’s and on and on. It is so different now. Creation information is abundant. This is a fun time to be a Bible believing Christian and a creationist! All the evidences are there, and support is there. God has won a great victory. I do not know where we will be in five years! It seems like it is kind of a cycle. There will be an upswing in Biblical literalism and creation and then a down swing down.
It seems as though we are on another downswing right now where we see otherwise solid Christians adopt a rather allegorical approach to Genesis. I am talking about the ‘framework hypothesis’ as we call it here. This is where the Genesis story does not contain actual history. Genesis only contains general information that God is some how involved. There is no detail recorded there, nor is there any history. This position is now being taught in many of the previously evangelical schools, colleges and seminaries here in the United States. Right now we are on the down swing of this issue. But there will be another upswing. I don’t know where we will be in five years. I do not think we will win the world back to creation any more then I think that we will win the world back to believe in Jesus Christ as Our Saviour. But we must try. We must do what we can. This is a religious issue. And for religious reasons people choose darkness over light. It will always be.
D:
What is your vision for united cooperation among the many creationists? Are they co-operating together enough? What is your idea about cooperation? Do they have to corporate or what do you think?
M:
This is an interesting question. There are so many creationist organisations now. By and large we are all of pretty good faith. Here in the United States we get along reasonably well. There are those who believe that the world is billions of years old. We are good friends with them and they are usually good friends with us. They are obsessed Christians who believe that the earth is billions of years old They sometimes will say some nasty things against us here because we do take such a literal approach to the Scriptures and the sciences. I don’t think that we will ever be totally unanimous on this. But look on this long cycle. I mean in 1960 there were no creationists. Now there are millions and millions and that is very encouraging to us. And I think this will continue.
D:
You state that evolution is basically a religion. Do you think that is due to scientific development outside the area of evolution, that this will cause some of the evolutionists conclude that they will have to change their so called religion to another direction?
M:
Most of the leaders in creation thinking today were former evolutionists! Most of them were trained in science as evolutionists and then later in life came to Christ as their Saviour. Now they see creation as truth and have adopted that. Therefore while there are some Christians that leave their faith and adopt evolution, it’s going both ways! Not every evolutionist will be saved and become a Christian. But this will not stop what is going to happen. Many do become Christians! We have seen some tremendous victories! The big research project that we just started here in the institute of Creationist Research is in the area of the human genome. They have decoded the human genome now. We have read these four million letters of the code. We are putting together this quite large research project. I will make a prediction here. Scientists like to make predictions. Not about the future so much as about what we are going to find. I predict that when we get into the genes, compare the human genome to the animal genomes, we are going to see startling evidences, that creation is truth and that evolution is not! It will explain the observed facts. In fact we have always said that the human genome and the chimp genome are very similar. Now they have studied the human genome for a couple of years. Just in the last few months they published the chimp genome. And we have them. We have compared them! They have said that the two are about 99% similar, say 97.99% similar! Well, when we compared them, they were not nearly that similar! They were much, much less then that! I will not say that they are lying to us. But they are not telling the truth! And they are ignoring all the parts that are not the same, that are dissimilar, and are only examining the parts that are the same. And those parts that are similar are 99% similar they say. No, that is not the whole truth! They are throwing out the majority of the genome. I think when we really get into it and look at these things carefully; they will be very, very different. There are so many differences between chimps and humans anyway. Even if the two species were 99% similar, that 1 % difference is very important. And where does that 1% difference come from? A mutation? Impossible! However, if there is only a 50% similarity between chimps and humans, they can’t even make that statement. I also predict that not only will differences prove that humans and animals are very, very different, but we will be able to see these phenomena in the various categories of plants and animals. The Bible says God created them each after their kind! But what are the limits of variety within that kind? We are talking about the dog kind. There are many domestic dogs plus wolves and foxes, all part of the same family. Proof of this is that they are inter-fertile and can all interbreed. I think they are part of the same kind even though they are called different species. In the case of cats we note that there are many varieties of cats. But there is nothing in between. They are totally separate. We are able to see that genetically we will be able to define their limits of the genesis kind, which is a very important statement for creation. We have not been able to do that before. Nobody has been able to define a species. That is very difficult but we will be able to that. I also think that the more we see the details of the genes. We will see the great differences between humans and apes. They are so different and then rate of deterioration of both differs. The mutations that affect both of them are so great that the implication is that if there were a kind of common ancestor it was not very long ago! I do not think that there was a common ancestor. Yet, the evolutionists are exaggerating today.
Now evolution says that humans and the apes are ancestors. They diverged some million years ago. But if they diverged that long ago why are they changing so fast now so that soon they will not have even remote similarities. It may be that the genome is going to be a very strong definitive argument before this has all done.
D:
You are also publishing a daily devotional magazine? People could ask: ”What is the relationship between publishing the scientific evidence and this daily devotional?” What was the reason for it?
M:
The Institute for Creational Research is a Christian organisation. We are committed Christians. We are a scientific organization and as such we only do scientific work. But we are all Christians. We all love the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour and we love the Bible. We believe the Bible. The daily devotional magazine that we publish is one of the most enjoyable things that I do. I am the editor of this magazine. It forces me to stay in God’s Word and deal with Biblical passages as I edit articles. I write many of them myself. It’s just a good discipline for me as a Christian to keep that up. I discovered that our scientific way of thinking, even about scripture, is really helpful to a lot of people. I mean we enjoy tight reasoning. You know how if goes, this and then this and then next and then the conclusion. That is how the scientist thinks. And you can even take that to scripture. Many people really do appreciate that approach to Scripture. They tell me that every day’s meditation is chunk of meat to chew on. The Bible says we have to be into the meat of the word. We like this meat! We like something good to chew on as opposed to just something that is easy to swallow! We like this really get into it. And a lot of people do like that. It has been a source of funds for us. We are totally donor supported. We have never had one dime of government money! We have a very few large donations, we don’t have foundations behind us. It’s just that as we minister to God’s people, they like to participate and we can minister to people in ways that other publications do not do! As we minister to them they support us. God has used the Days of Praise to help meet the needs of the Institute of Creational Research.
D:
How do you see the creation and evolution discussion in the framework of apocalyptic development?
M:
I see us as a Christian organization. We are not a church. Nor are we a denomination. Our staff here at RCI represents different churches. Most of us would be looking for Jesus to come back today, I mean anytime. Maybe today maybe tomorrow, soon I hope. We are looking for this. If we look at prophecy we see some trends. It is helpful to go back to creation and see what God intended for his creation from the beginning. It was all very good, before there was sin, before there was death. There was perfect fellowship between man and God and there was harmony among the animals and with man. This was the perfect Garden of Eden. When God describes the coming new heavens and the new earth, it’s all so much the same
I think we can learn from this that although God’s plan for creation has been delayed by sin, it has not been stopped.
God will accomplish his purpose and creation in the new earth. He has seen his original creation ruined by sin. Since a penalty for sin had to be paid, his Son died to pay that penalty so that we can have fellowship restored and eternal life. And then He said that this earth will pass away with fervent heat and there will be a new heavens and a new earth. And then what He describes again is access to the tree of life and living forever. There will be no more pain and no more suffering. Everything will be just as it was in the Garden of Eden before sin came. So what helps us is to go back to creation itself, which hints as to what God is going to do in eternity. It will all coalesce at that point.
D: If somebody comes to you with some doubt about creation and evolution, what is your advice for study? What books should he buy? Or what tapes should he listen to what is your advice?
M:
Depending upon the background of the person that comes, if it is a scientist we get some scientific books and we can talk about some of the scientific evidences. If it is an ordinary layperson, maybe it is a Christian that has doubts about this. I have found that for a Christian who has doubts about creation, perhaps the very best thing to do is to talk about how evolution does not fit in with the character of God. The nature of God as portrayed in Scripture is different from the sort of god that would have used evolution to create. Take the issue of death. Where does death come from? You see evolution is the cult of death. There was an extinction of the dinosaurs, which in turn gave rise to mammals and finally man.
Death brought man? The Bible says: “No there was no death.” Man’s sin brought death. If death was here before man, if death was something good, if death produced man, if death is normal, if it’s natural, then death is caused by sin. And you see if death is not caused by sin, then why did Christ die for our sins? This was physical death; the wages of sin is physical death. Death was introduced into the Garden of Eden when Adam rejected God’s authority as seen in Genesis chapter three. But if death was natural, if death was good, then death is not the penalty of sin. If true, death cannot pay the penalty of sin and Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death accomplished nothing. Therefore, creation is the foundation for all of Christianity. It cannot be separated. But of course this issue of billions of years of death cannot be separated from evolution. There are two complete opposite worldviews. Evolution is the anti-Christian worldview. And Christian ought not to bring it in! So for a Christian who comes to us with questions I like to talk about the character of God. Would God use evolution to create his image? I think not. Tale the premise of the survival of the fittest. Christianity knows nothing about the survival of the fittest. In Christianity the most important truth is the most foolish of all; that Jesus Christ died for the unfit and that’s me. However, with the survival of the fittest it is the death of the unfit. For Christians the opposite is true. It is the death of the most fit for the unfit, just the opposite! So Christians need to know that evolution cannot be a part of true Christian thinking. All our Christian thinking is illogical if it does not hold together. We have some positive videos that’s really zero in at that point.
D:
Can you mention some?
M:
One video that we have just produced is called: “After Eden”. It focuses upon the character of God. Here is how it goes. The question is asked: if God knows everything why did He take millions of years to make creation seeing that he is also omnipotent? Was He not strong enough to do it quickly? And if His purpose was to create man in His image, then is it so that He can demonstrate His love and grace? Why does it all take so long? I mean, what are God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s love? All of these attributes are incompatible with the idea of the survival of the fittest and the extinction of the unfit. Survival of the fittest is not a godly process. When the Christian sees that combined with the idea that death comes before sin, then Christians should recognize that evolution is not an option for the Bible believing Christian.
D:
If we want to start a creation centre in Holland what is your advice? After so many years of experience surely you can help us.
M:
A creation centre has to start, if it starts, out of the blue, I don’t know how this could happen. In Holland. I think that there are many individuals who have a long history, of believing and teaching creation. There is a record of what they have done. There are preachers, there are scientists and these are a base to build upon. To start just out of the blue is difficult. But what God wills could be done. There is the Biblical mandate which states: “He who is faithful in little things I will responsibility over greater things.”
Many individuals ask me: “I want to get involved in a creation ministry”. I say start small, do what you can, and then see how God blesses. And continue to follow His leading. That is the Biblical path to follow.
D:
I thank you very much for this interview.
I will show it to my colleagues in Holland and we will be in touch.
Thank you.
M:
God bless you all in the days ahead. As St. Paul wrote: “make the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” There is much to do. I would welcome a new Creation Institute in Holland. Together we can accomplish many things.
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