This article was taken from a class session by Mrs. Jennifer Wright, professor of Biology at Fairhaven Baptist College.

This lecture is called, Human Origins.   There are, obviously, two views of human origins.  What do you think the two views are based on? Evidence or paradigm?   It’s based on your paradigm. If you are a creationist, you have one view of human origins and you’re most likely not going to be swayed to the other.  If you’re an evolutionist, you have another view of human origins and you probably won’t be swayed the other way, either. Because origins is a historical science at best and it’s based on your paradigm.  Why do most people believe in evolution? Because they’ve studied the evidence and made a decision about it? No. Because they were brought up through their education, their background and everything else, with a particular paradigm,

So, we have two views.  First view, is the creationist paradigm.  The creationist viewpoint is that man was created by God, in His image, on day 6.   In contrast to that, man is not made in God’s image. But what is man? He is the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder.  He is a product of millions of years of natural processes. He is a higher form of animal. And, of course, this completely changes your view and it’s completely based on your paradigm.  What you’ve already decided you believe. If we’re creationists, we also believe that man has a special place in God’s creation. That man is not just a higher animal. That man is in God’s image.  Man was specially created by God and, as such, he has a special place in God’s creation. As you know, Genesis plainly gives man dominion over the animal kingdom and all of the earth. Either that, or man is diverged from some ape-like ancestor around 60 million years ago.

Evolutionists do not teach that man came from monkeys.  Following is what evolutionists teach about human origins.  Most of what I have today, I’ve gotten from the Smithsonian Institute.  So, we need to know what is taught about evolution. What is promoted about human origins.  Don’t be flippent and just say, “Oh, yeah, they believe man came from monkeys.” That shows you’re not informed.   Let’s get informed about what do evolutionists believe about human origins. They believe that man is the product of millions of years of purposeless evolutionary processes.  We call that gradualism. And, they believe that man diverged from some ape-like ancestor around 6 million years ago.

There is about 6,000 years of recorded Biblical history.   According to evolution, modern man has been around about 200,000 and, of course, Homo sapiens, modern man itself, our species, around 10,000.   But there’s a big lineage of hominids and, of course, your hominids will date back to 200,000 years. Those human beings are very close relatives;  such as, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and so forth.

So, we have two separate viewpoints.  Two separate viewpoints involving what we believe about human origins.  The goal, today, is for me to go over what is believed about human origins, today.  Here’s, again, our creationist view. Where does it come from? The Bible. Man was created in God’s image. These are diametrically opposed views.  Either man is created in God’s image or man is the product of evolution. Another thing that’s important for the creationist viewpoint is that man is separate and distinct from animals.  Man is above the animal kingdom. You are not a higher species of animal. You are not just a human species in the same category as every other species. And, of course, we know that we have a special place in God’s creation.  We are the only creation in his image. That’s why human rights is important and that’s also why animal rights do not exist. And it all goes back to your creationist paradigm. We have God’s image. We are specially created by God.  We have purpose and a place in creation. We are not a higher form of animal. Human rights are important. Animal rights really do not exist in a Biblical paradigm.

Where do we get this?  Where do you get your creationist paradigm?  I hope you get it from the Bible. In particular, we have Genesis I and Genesis 2.  In Genesis 1, we know from verse 27, that we were created in God’s image. And we know from chapter 2, that God formed us and gave us a physical body.  That’s the forming. God gave us a life consciousness. But, back to verse 27, we have an additional component of our makeup. We have our physical body which, yes, is mammalian.  Maybe it is similar to primates but that’s only our physical body. That’s only one part of our component. We also have a life consciousness which we do share with the animal kingdom.  But the animal kingdom does not have the eternal spirit, the third part of your makeup, that’s kind of involved with God’s image.

Origins; Creation; Evolution; God’s image

Genesis 1:27  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Genesis 2:7  “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”