Articles

Ross is Wrong

By Karl C. Priest 11-12-08 (revised 1-6-09)

Christians have made several attempts to compromise with evolutionism which they confuse with real science. Always the compromise is based upon trying to reconcile the “millions of years” claimed (of necessity) by evolutionists for the age of the earth.

Personal experiences have proven to me that evolutionists have only contempt for those who try to attach God onto evolution. Although dogmatic Darwinists mock Young Earth Creationists for what we believe, evolutionists respect our logic and consistency because we creationists read the Bible straight forwardly.

As a new Christian I assumed God had used evolution. I was unaware of the term, but that belief is Theistic Evolutionism. As soon as I heard that evolution was not biblical it was easy for me to go to the Gap Theory and quickly (as soon as I heard of it) embrace Young (less than 10 thousand years) Earth Creationism.

The scope of this article is not to explain why various Old Earth positions are wrong and harmful to the proclaiming the Gospel. Those subjects are handled expertly and extensively on any Young Earth Creation website. Rather, the focus of this article will be on a slick doctrine that is more deceptive than other compromises. I am referring to the Progressive Creation expounded by Dr. Hugh Ross and the Reasons to Believe organization. Specifically, I will focus on what Ross and Reasons to Believe teach about insects.

Ross accepts the millions of years and evolutionary scenario for the appearance of insects. Except for his denial of any evolution and his Christian and Bible talk, all Ross has to say about insects is straight from the mouths of true believers in evolutionism. Ross even provides links to secular evolution promoting websites such as The Virtual Fossil Museum (http://www.fossilmuseum.net/) where this banner runs across the top of the homepage: “Fossils across geological time presented in multiple contexts of geological history, the tree of life, paleobiology, and evolution.” Easily found within the same website is, “‘Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution’. Theodosius Dobzhansky (geneticist) The often seen quote above by famous geneticist Dobzhansky elegantly captures the paramount importance of evolution. Stated differently, evolution is the single organizing principle of all the biological sciences.”

Ross believes God created the insects in increments over the millions of years needed by evolutionists to fit their interpretation of the geological strata. According to Ross, God created things (plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, non human hominids) the insects, needed to interact with each progressive creation, were created as needed. Then groups of insects were replaced as these progressive creations went extinct. were destroyed in some catastrophe

A Ross disciple, Greg Moore, unwittingly equates evolution to science by writing, “The scientific view is based upon the fossil evidence.” Moore, in attempting to rebut Answers in Genesis’ Greg Mortenson, says science places the first insects “in the Devonian Period, about 400 million years ago.” That is when Hugh Ross believes God performed the first in a series of progressive creations. (Moore, Greg. “Does the Old-Earth View Contradict Genesis 1?” http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/other_papers/greg_moore_does_old_ earth_creationism_contradict_
genesis_1.shtml)

An example of the confusing statements issued by the Ross group is a commentary on a news item. “Discovery of the first fossilized leaf insect from early Eocene formations in Germany provides support for RTB’s creation model. Named Eophyllium messelensis, the specimen dates to 47 million years in age but displays remarkably modern features. This find indicates that leaf insects have not undergone any appreciable evolutionary change for the last 47 million years. The first appearance of leaf insects with modern features followed by a period of developmental stasis is a pattern that comports well with the notion that a Creator is responsible for life’s history.” (http://www.reasons.org/resources/tnrtb/200702.shtml) This commentary accepts the evolution dating and mixes in God along with an almost unnoticed reference to the Progressive Creationism dogma.

I sent snail mail to Dr. Ross asking if the first flying insects were created with wings like they have today. I wanted to know his thoughts about the hive making ability of bees. I also asked him if the first ants were able to produce sterile workers immediately. He did not reply. I used the Reasons website contact form to post a query and received a response from Dr. Eugene S. Lopata (Physical Chemistry)

Dr. Lopata gave his interpretation of the creation of insects based upon the writings of Dr. Ross. Lopata wrote, “The creation days described in Genesis 1 are long periods of time (on the order of millions of years—geological ages)…The fossil record consistently reveals the geological sudden appearance of new forms of life; once that life appears, it remains for a long time relatively unchanged. This is called stasis in biology.” Dr. Lopated concluded by saying he has “no basis for judging how rapidly or over what period of time God actually introduced insect species on the earth, i. e. whether they were created very suddenly or over thousands or tens of thousands of years.”

Ross wrote (in “Genesis One, Dinosaurs and Cavemen” (http://reasons.org/kidsspace/dinocave.shtml?main No longer available) a scenario of the creation (beginning “billions of years ago”) that fits an evolutionary description perfectly, except Ross has God creating new life forms periodically over billions of years..

In a Radio Spot “Does Genesis place insects as being created last?” (Copied in August, 1999. No citation available) Ross argued that the “creeping creatures” of Genesis 1:25 were not insects. He said that if insects were created last “the Genesis record of creation is out of synch with the scientifically established facts.” He should have said, evolutionary scenario.

In his book Creation and Time (pg. 63) Ross argues that there was death before the fall of Adam and Eve. He amazingly says that “plants suffer when they are eaten.” He uses insects to support the argument because we have “little concern (felt) over the death of insects”. This is his way of saying that some death was allowable before the Fall.

Elsewhere Ross wrote, “Less advanced creatures, like cockroaches, may last as long as 150 million years.”

I have coined a term to disrobe the Ross view of creation: "TE-PE" for Theistic Evolution with Punctuated Equilibrium.

Not only does Hugh Ross misread and twist the plainly written text of Genesis, but he slides on down the slippery slope by claiming that nature is the 67th book of the Bible. It is no wonder that, while researching this article, I found links on the Reasons to Believe website that took me to the aforementioned evolutionist fossil website, but another that led me to a skeptic who mocked the Noachian flood by ignorantly arguing that insects could not have survived the flood and another one that attempts to explain the Egyptian plagues from naturalistic means. Ross gives us reasons not to believe.

Hugh Ross has insidious (and heretical) beliefs and he is flat-out wrong regarding the origin of insects.