What is Man?

When Charles Darwin wrote his influential “Origin of Species” in 1859, wherein he proposed that all life had evolved over many eons of time, the question of where man had come from he tactfully avoided. Instead, in the last chapter of his work he teased the question with “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”

Twelve years in 1871 he addressed man’s origins in his new book “On the Descent of Man.” In it he proposed that mankind had evolved from old world monkeys. And though personally anti-slavery, he expressed that the caucasian race was the most evolved of all the races. He even felt that men were more evolved than women (!). But the damaging sociological implications of evolution make room for ideas of superiority and inferiority. Adolf Hitler based his racial views on Darwinian theory.

Darwin felt that nature “selected” superiors to thrive. Evolution favored the fittest, and this was supposed to be the mechanism by which change occurred in species. However, science has more recently rejected that mechanism as it does not add to or significantly change the life form. All survival of the fittest does is insure fitness! So, another mechanism for change was sought, and now “Neo-Darwinism” holds mutation as the mechanism for change.

Practically speaking, evolution is believed to happen by mistakes. That is, the genetic material from parents somehow was incorrectly copied, resulting in a different offspring…and net evolution is the product. According to the popular science of today man exists because of a long series of mistakes. A product of millions of oopses, we are all walking mutants!

About the time Darwin was proposing his views on evolution a cave in the Neander Valley in Germany produced old human bones. When they were assembled the skeleton showed a bent over back. From these remains and their location of discovery came the image of “the cave man.” These bones were from a race of fully human beings now known as the “Neanderthals.” But far from being the ancestor of modern man, Neanderthals had larger brains that today’s humans and showed many similarities to modern man thanks to paleontological discoveries (they buried their dead, played musical instruments, were artistic and so on). They have even found traces of their DNA in modern day humans. They were no different than any race existing today.

Further discoveries of ancient remains, like the famous australopithecine called “Lucy,” have been used to support human evolution. But there is disagreement among evolutionists as to whether she was more human or simply an ape. This is a consistent issue in identifying these scanty remains.

More remains have been found, but the general direction is one of confusion, as there is rarely much found. The following quote, though old, stills resonates:

Then there is the problem of “drawing the lines.”

If we are indeed “hairless apes,” as museums depict man, the fossil evidence is weak. Bipedality, posture when walking, brain size, knuckle-walking (locking knuckles), length of arms, form of the feet, evidence of vocal chords and many other physical features are what scientists look for as potential ancestors. But what is often found is “mixed bags,” with favorable features mixed with unfavorable ones. This is a telling and honest quote by an evolutionist about this challenge:

But lets go even further back. Where did life come from? The most popular view is that life sprang (somehow) from a sort of primordial soup. This remains admittedly by scientists as perhaps the great unanswered question, but this is the model that is most widely adhered to. What comes to my mind is the John Lennon/Beatles song of “Come Together,” where he sings that he came “oozing out slowly.” That’s pretty well it! This makes man both a walking mutant and “animated pond scum!”

Over against this view, and I mean ‘WAY over against this view, is the Biblical record of mankind’s creation. After five days of creating a world for humanity to inhabit and supervise, God was ready to create man. But instead of merely speaking man into existence (after five days of simply speaking “let there be ______”) God decides to personally get into the dirt and form man from the dust of the earth. The Hebrew describes a very “hands on” shaping of our first parents.

More than that, man was formed in God’s image. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27. This is why Luke 3:38 describes the beginning of the human family as “Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

With such a royal lineage as this, it is a tragedy that Satan has so successfully led the world to believe they are pond scum. No wonder low self esteem plagues so many today.