by Fr. Teologos (Kadar) –
Humility is accepting the truth as it is, and not as we would like it to be. The truth is that we humans did not evolve from animals, because we have eternal souls and we are the image of God. But due to sin, we have become worse than animals. Brethren, we must never forget this if we want to attain salvation.
Today, alas, there is a fierce war against the truth because the truth is the most important thing for our salvation. Its most famous enemy is Darwinian theory, which states that we evolved from apes; a theory that in its classical form was refuted in the scientific world decades ago.
Why? Because in fact not a single piece of evidence has been found in fossils that could confirm the continuity of evolution proclaimed by Darwinian theory—that is, there is no “missing link”, and in fact there are even several missing links. For this reason, the theory was far-fetched: it claims that evolution manifests itself in leaps and bounds, which has been refuted today, again due to the lack of clear evidence.
It may be useful for you to know that the so-called “proofs” of evolutionists are indirect ones, which apply only to individual cases, but are arbitrarily transferred to complex systems. Because there is a huge interest in the spread of this theory.
Curiously enough, the absence of the “missing links” actually indicates that species differ from each other, even if they adapt to their environments. St. Maximus the Confessor made it very clear when he said that species do not transform from one to another, because no species changes its purpose, its state (λόγος in Greek), the aim for which it was created.
If God improves the design and reuses what He Himself created in another form of His creation, it means that He is a wise and skillful Creator Who does not contradict Himself, and not that one species evolves from another. Brethren, this is a fact. We must be extremely careful, brethren!
For example, take a look at my hand: I have a little finger, a ring finger, a middle finger, an index finger and a thumb. Do you see that they look very similar and are arranged in an apparent evolution? But it does not mean that they evolve from one another, but that all these fingers have one common source—they were created by one Creator.
Brethren, randomness and explosion, even the “Big Bang”, do not create order and reason. If you accidentally detonate a Molotov cocktail or an atomic bomb, you will not create order; on the contrary: you will have to wait for the consequences of the explosion to pass so that someone smart can restore order.
When it comes to randomness, do you think that the human eye is a product of chance? Or, if we assume that you flew to a faraway planet and found a very complex clock in the desert that is perfectly accurate, would you think that this is a product of chance? No, certainly not!
This, of course, does not exclude the possibility of environmental adaptability and genetic mutations within the same species, which God provided out of His love so that the species, and especially man, could respond to various changes that arise in the course of history. But still, as St. Paisios said, a cucumber can become better and you can improve a tomato, but you can’t turn a chimpanzee into a human, no matter how hard you try. Do you understand?
You see, our very consciousness resists this. If someone calls another person an evolved chimpanzee, an evolved orangutan, or an evolved gorilla, it will be perceived as an insult, and in all fairness. Man is something fundamentally different: he was created in a completely different way (that is, by Divine counsel, not by His word) and for a different purpose—for theosis.
The problem with modern science is that it only deals with the immanent. It is a science without God, an ultimate goal, or real meaning. Evolutionism tries to patch this up without providing a fulfilling explanation for personality, because it confines man in the realm of animals and in the realm of chance. In addition, evolution is based on the struggle for existence between species, natural selection, and the urban jungle, which totally contradicts the healthy state of a loving and peaceful soul.
In fact, evolutionism is turned towards death, in which the rational soul has no place, and it knows it. It accumulates, memorizes, improves, struggles in labyrinths without meaning and eventually everything disappears in death! This is so-called evolutionism.
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Excerpts from On Miracles and Darwin translated from Romanian from O Chilie Athonită: Bucurii din Sfântul Munte website. (Minor organizational edits to optimize readability and emphasize key points made by Chris Banescu.)
