We should never fall into the trap of circular reasoning. If I invented a theory to explain some phenomenon, should I then cite the phenomenon as evidence for my theory? For example, if I find a black rock with purple dots painted on it, I might claim that Martians painted the dots on the rock. If you ask me how I know this, I might reply, “Here’s the rock. See for yourself!” So you see, my theory might explain the rock but the rock doesn’t prove my theory. Likewise, people have invented an elaborate theory, the theory of evolution, to explain changes in animals. Then they point to the changes in the animals as evidence for their theory. It’s very bizarre.
Let me give you a hypothetical situation that might open some eyes about how theories work. Imagine a man comes home from work and finds broken glass all over the living room floor. Of course he would wonder where it came from. He immediately begins to theorize.
He knows only his wife, his teenage daughter, and his toddler son would have been the only ones home so he immediately concludes one of them broke something.
What was broken? He looks around at a vase, the window, and a mirror that are in the room and they are all there so it wasn’t one of them. He starts to reassemble some of the pieces of glass and sees it was a drinking glass that was broken. There’s no liquid on the floor so the glass must have been empty when it was dropped. He also notices a little bit of dust that seems to have already accumulated on the glass. He looks in the kitchen cabinet and no other glasses have that much dust on them so the glass must have been on the floor for a while. It wasn’t there when he left for work so it must have happened very soon after he left.
His wife is a compulsive cleaner who would have never left broken glass on the living room floor all day. He son is too small to even reach the cabinet so it must have been his teenage daughter who broke the glass.
Having gathered all these facts, he concluded the following:
Everyone was still in bed when he left for work so his wife must have gotten up soon after he left and took their son out somewhere. A little later, his daughter gets out of bed and heads toward the kitchen, maybe carrying an empty glass she had in her bedroom from the night before. She accidentally drops the glass and, being a typical teenager, leaves the broken glass in the floor all day.
The man stands there for a moment, admiring his own sleuthing skills when his wife walks into the room. He was a little surprised to see her and asked where she’s been. She tells him she’d been home all day. The man was totally puzzled as his wife began to explain what really happened.
She was cleaning the house and noticed some men standing in their driveway. Not knowing who they were, she watched them for a while and saw one of them drop a glass he’d been drinking from and it broke in the driveway. Being worried about her own safety, she was afraid to go out and confront the men so she waited until they left. Then she went out and swept the broken glass up into a dustpan. It was a hot day and whatever was in the glass must have already evaporated. As she was bringing the glass inside to throw it away, she dropped the dustpan. She was getting the vacuum from the basement to clean up the mess, and that’s when her husband arrived home.
We see that the man’s theory was wrong on nearly every point. The glass wasn’t empty when it was dropped. It wasn’t dropped in the living room. It wasn’t dropped by anyone in the family. It wasn’t even their glass. It wasn’t dropped in the morning. The dust on the glass must have come from the driveway or the dustpan. Finally, the wife had not gone anywhere.
The man’s theory might have explained all the facts but very little about his theory was actually true. What was true is what was told to him by the eyewitness to the events.
The man had conceived his theory using all the facts that were available to him. Parts of his theory seemed blatantly obvious - like that someone in his family must have broken the glass with his daughter being the most likely culprit. If he’d had more details, he might have tweaked the theory here and there to include the new details but he was wrong on even the most fundamental details, namely that it wasn’t someone in his family and it wasn’t even their glass. No amount of tweaking could have ever led him to the truth because he started from a foundation that wasn’t true!
When theorizing about the origins of life and the universe, some people start with the wrong premise. They begin looking for a natural explanation when the true cause is supernatural. Until they realize that, no amount of research or tweaking to their theories of evolution or the Big Bang will ever lead them to the truth.
What was true about the glass is what was told by the eyewitness. When the man was told the truth by the one who was there, he could then understand why things were as they were. When we look at the creation of the world, we can speculate and make theories about how it happened but our theories aren't evidence of anything. The Creator of the world has told us what He did and He was indeed the only eyewitness to the events. The truth of His words trumps our theories.
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