All things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 3:1
"The date of 1844 is particularly meaningful to us since this is the time of the great disappointment that brought forth Adventism. But 1844 is also an important date in the history of evolution. That year there appeared in England a book entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. The title belies its heretical contents. The book caused a minor explosion in placid Victorian England. The author, after analyzing fossil patterns, proposed a then-shocking principle of progressive development for the life on Earth, that is, evolution.For that time, sales of the book were phenomenal. During its first ten years 24,000 copies were sold, which is more than twice as many as for Darwin’s famous book The Origin of Species, also published in England 15 years later. Sales of Vestiges were enhanced by violent objections from leading thought-leaders. Adam Sedgwick, the president of the Geological Society, wrote a 400-page critique of this “false philosophy.”
Adding to the intrigue was the fact that the name of the author was kept secret because he did not dare to identify himself. It was only revealed after his death in 1871. It turned out to be the well-known Robert Chambers, the editor of Chamber’s Encyclopedia.
It has sometimes been proposed that it was no chance happenstance that the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with its special Sabbath based on Creation, came into existence at the same time as evolution. It has also been suggested that “God was not caught by surprise by this turn of events.” Could it be that one of the special purposes of Adventism is to
While we don’t have strong evidence that the timing of the origin of Adventism was designed to coincide with the general acceptance of evolution, the idea is both intriguing and plausible. Regardless, there is no question that Adventism has an especially important message for the prevailing evolutionary philosophy of our time. Adventism with its seventh-day Sabbath that honors God’s six-day Creation week is a special answer to ideas of millions of years of gradual evolution where it is postulated that there is no need of a God. It is hard to separate Adventism from Creation. Even the first part of our name “Seventh-Day” refers to a memorial of the six-day Creation week.
Discoveries in three major areas challenge traditional scientific evolutionary interpretations:
1. The recent discoveries in molecular biology present complexities of integrated and feedback mechanisms that thwart any idea that these could have just happened by chance. Thus far evolutionists have not been able to produce a workable model for the development of complexity. It appears that there has to be an intelligent mind behind all this.
2. A number of physical constants related to matter and the universe are exactly what they should be to make the universe habitable for life. Even every slight deviation could spell cosmic annihilation. This is very precise design.
3. The new trend in geology towards rapid catastrophic interpretations, which has been labeled as “great philosophical breakthrough,” fits in well with what would be expected from the Genesis Flood of the Bible.
Adventism has a special opportunity here. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that God is our Creator and that He has the ability to recreate us at the resurrection. We have a seventh-day Sabbath that witnesses to our belief in Creation. The opportunities before us are unprecedented. The world needs to know that the Bible is the Word of God and that God is the Creator." AmazingDiscoveries/ArielRoth
