This article are the notes transcribed from the series of episodes from Truthwatchers podcast.

The Ancient Pagan Origin of the Modern Evolutionary Philosophy (Part 1) Aug. 14, 2023

Today we will be returning to the topic of theistic evolution, and why it is not compatible with the bible. In the former episodes we looked at Francis Collins’ scientific premise for theistic evolution and found that his position of origins is very deistic. After that we had an episode on Tremper Longman who attempted to construct a theological position for theistic evolution. We found his views cannot be sustained consistently with his own hermeneutic methods, which proves it is a shallow biblical position.

In the future I am planning to discuss the biblical issues of trying to fit evolution into the bible, but today I am approaching the discussion from the historical perspective. Evolution is not compatible with the Bible because it is rooted in ancient paganism.

I am aware of only a few authors or researchers who have developed this perspective. Henry Fairfield Osborn wrote a book in 1894 called, From the Greeks to Darwin. Osborn was the curator of the American Museum of Natural history for 25 years. Another earlier book was Arthur Lovejoy’s book The Great Chain of Being, originally published in 1936. More recently, Henry Morris discussed it in a chapter entitled “conflict of the ages” in his book The Long War Against God first published in 2000. Another Creationist Paul James-Griffiths has an article on Creation.com and a video discussing it accessible in the internet. Other than these few sources most authors have made brief comments without much development on the topic. I discussed the topic briefly in my book Crept In Unawares, and that portion is also available as an article on Truthwatchers.com.

This podcast is a further development on the topic and we will probably need a few episodes to cover it all. This is a topic I find fascinating and will continue to study and expand over the years.

Tertullian, and ancient church father, stated, “There is nothing without a beginning but God alone. Now, inasmuch as the beginning occupies the first place in the condition of all things, so it must necessarily take precedence in the treatment of them, if a clear Knowledge is to be arrived at concerning their condition; for you could not find the means of examining even the quality of anything, unless you were certain of its existence, and that after discovering its origin.”¹⁾Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.1; The Ante Nicene Father (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 3, p. 429 His comment indicates that God is the only thing that exists without a beginning, and to thoroughly understand anything that exists, we must understand its beginning. So to understand the evolutionary hypothesis, one must know where the idea began. Our goal in these podcasts have been to assess theistic evolution, so we will need to go back to the origin of this concept to understand it.

Henry Morris said in his discussion, “This will demonstrate again the fact that Darwin and the other 19th-century evolutionists made no great scientific discovery, but merely revived ancient paganism in modern form.”²⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 207 Henry Faifeild Osborn wrote in his book From the Greeks to Darwin, p. 1,

“Evolution has reached its present fullness by slow additions in twenty-four centuries. When the truths and absurdities of Greek, mediaeval, and sixteenth to nineteenth century speculation and observation are brought together, it becomes clear that they form a continuous whole, that the influences of early upon later thought are greater than has been believed, that Darwin owes more even to the Greeks than we have ever recognized.”³⁾Henry Fairfeild Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 1

Paul James-Griffiths has a power-point presentation recorded as a video on the  internet in which he implies that evolution came from the Hindus to the Greeks through Pythagoras. My research so far would indicate that the originating place of evolution is likely Egypt. This is because we do find Greek philosophers predating Pythagoras with these views which would tell me the influence of this thought was earlier than the Hindus influence on Greek philosophers through Pythagoras. It would also make sense that Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt would start his doctrine of the Israelite faith in the creator God Jehovah as opposing the Egyptian faith of origins.

Margaret R. Bunson, says in Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, p. 88-89, “The basic tenets of these cosmological systems were twofold: (1) the universe was once a primordial ocean called NUN or NU; (2) a primeval hill arose to bring life out of chaos and darkness…. In this creation story the god ATUM emerges from the watery chaos called NUN.”⁴⁾Margaret R. Bunson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Facts on File, inc. (New York, NY:2002),p. 88-89 The Egyptian text, craved as hieroglyphics inside a pyramids of Mer-ne-Re is dates to the 6^th dynasty (i.e. 24^th century B.C.), states, “The Creation by Atum” states, “I am Atum when I was alone in Nun; I am Re in his (first) appearance, when he began to rule that which he had made.”⁵⁾The Creation by Atum, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ed. James B. Pritchard) 3rd Edition, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ: 1969), p. 3

This is a common thread of the evolutionary idea in pagan mythology, that a god or the gods are spontaneously generated in pre-existing water. This is contrasted to the Genesis account which has God creating all things Ex-nihlo, out of nothing, by speaking it into existence as in Genesis 1. Hebrews 11:3 says, ^“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Egyptian myths expound further this creation account, stating, “Many were the beings which came forth from my mouth, before heaven came into being, before earth came into being, before the ground and creeping things had been created in this place. I put together (some) of them in Nun as weary ones, before I could find a place in which I might stand. It seemed advantageous to me in my heart; I planned with my face; and I made (in concept) every form when I was alone, before I had spat out what was Shu [air god], before I had sputtered out what was Tefnut [goddess of moisture], and before (any) other had come into being who could act with me.”⁶⁾The Repulsing of the Dragon and the Creation, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ed. James B. Pritchard) 3rd Edition, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ: 1969), p. 6 This text is from a papyrus dated about 310 B.C., but it preserves language which would date its origin of approximately 2,000 years earlier.

John Walton explains the creation account of Egypt in his book Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context, p. 32-33. “Creation in Egypt proceeds from a condition of watery chaos (Nun) and then is seen to be continually reenacted until a time when chaos will return…. Thus, there is no specific material used for the creation of the cosmos in the Egyptian way of thinking, but neither is it creation out of nothing. All matter (existing in chaotic form) becomes part of the creator-god, who then creates, drawing from himself…. Both animal and plant life fall into the ‘evolution’ rather than the creation category. Animal life apparently springs from the falcon, who is hatched from a primordial egg. Plants derive from the lotus, which grows on the first primeval hillock that emerged from the watery chaos.”⁷⁾John H. Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context, Zondervan Publishing House (Grand Rapids, MI: 1990), p. 32-33

One of the reasons I disagree with Paul James-Griffiths view of the Hindu influencing the Greeks to adopt the evolutionary philosophy is because the way the Greeks discussed their adaptation of Egypt thought and merge the two cultural religions together. Herodotus, for examples, says, “However, in the times anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above the rest. The last of these was Horus, the son of Osiris, called by the Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon [Seth], and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is named Dionysus by the Greeks.”⁸⁾Herodotus, Histories, 2.144; (Trans. George Rawlinson), Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY:1997), p. 200 We see a clear attempt to reconcile the religious ideas and synchronize the gods of Greece and Egypt. By the way, I will often speak of Evolution as a philosophy. My reasoning for this is because it has developed from Greek philosophers. I refuse to treat evolution as a scientific theory, because it has not yet, after 150 years of being accept in western society as a scientific theory, provided enough evidence to validate the concept as a scientific theory. At best it still remains a hypothesis which has not found enough evidence to support it as a theory.

From the Greek culture, around 750-650 B.C., Hesiod, wrote his Theogeny which states in verses 116-138 “In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bore starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long hills, graceful haunts of the goddess Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bore also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.”⁹⁾Hesiod, Theogeny 116-138; The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Here we find the origin of the Greek gods and goddesses. Of course, in Paganism, these various gods and goddesses are personifications of nature. Some of the names are the English translations of what they are attributed as personifications—Earth who is name Gia, and various other forms, Day, Night, Chaos, etc., or others were identified with their Greek names such as Cronos, which means “times,” and Oceanus, obviously the ocean. These are all aspects of nature being personified as deities.  They all came from Chaos which was first.

The early Christians and Jews had rejected the evolutionary ideas of the paganism that surrounded them and often refuted the concept. This historical fact reveals to us historical precedence to reject modern evolutionary thought and not attempt to synchronize it with Christianity. The author of the early Christian text Recognition of Clement, explains Hesiod’s Theogony as an allegorical expression of evolution.  “But to this Hesiod adds, that after chaos the heaven and the earth were made immediately, from which he says that those eleven were produced (and sometimes also he speaks of them as twelve) of whom he makes six males and five females. And these are the names that he gives to the males: Oceanus, Cœus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Chronos, who is also called Saturn. Also the names of the females are: Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys. And these names they thus interpret allegorically. They say that the number is eleven or twelve: that the first is nature itself, which also they would have to be called Rhea, from Flowing; and they say that the other ten are her accidents, which also they call qualities; yet they add a twelfth, namely Chronos, who with us is called Saturn, and him they take to be time. Therefore they assert that Saturn and Rhea are time and matter; and these, when they are mixed with moisture and dryness, heat and cold, produce all things.”¹⁰⁾Recognitions of Clement 10.31; The Ante Nicene Father (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 8, p. 200

Another early Christian Theophilus, argued against the evolutionary premise of Hesiod’s Theogony. He basic argument is who performed the organizing of matter? In other words, if this matter, or Rhea, becomes organized in any fashion to produce anything there had to be intelligence behind the organization of matter. This argument reveals that the Theogony myth is depicting a blind chance behind the organizing of matter over a long period of  time—Rhea and Cronos/Saturn. “And saying this, he has not yet explained by whom all this was made. For if chaos existed in the beginning, and matter of some sort, being uncreated, was previously existing, who was it that effected the change on its condition, and gave it a different order and shape? Did matter itself alter its own form and arrange itself into a world (for Jupiter was born, not only long after matter, but long after the world and many men; and so, too, was his father Saturn), or was there some ruling power which made it; I mean, of course, God, who also fashioned it into a world?”¹¹⁾Theophilus, To Autolycus 2.6; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 2, p. 96

Directing our attention to Thales, 623-548 B.C., we find this comment in The Oxford History of the Classical World p. 115.  “Thales taught that everything is derived from water and that the earth rests on water. Perhaps he was attracted to these tenets, as Aristotle conjectures, ‘from seeing that the nutriment of all things contains moisture, and that heat itself comes from this and is sustained by it; and because the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and water is the basis of moisture’. At the same time it is hard to separate Thales’ world picture from Egyptian and Semitic creation stories in which the initial state is a waste of waters, now covered over by the earth.”¹²⁾Martin West, “Early Greek Philosophy,” in The Oxford History of the Classical World (ed. John Broadman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray) Oxford University Press (New York, NY: 1986), p. 115 While this author connects this idea accurately with Egypt, it erroneously refers to Semitic creation account, unless by such terms it is intending to imply Mesopotamian myths wherein Baal or Marduk has to overcome Tiamat the sea goddess who is also a personification of chaos as a creator. If the author is intending to connect Judaism with the term Semitic, the error should be obvious since God creates all this from nothing as was mentioned before.

Again, we find ancient Christians refuting the pagan myths of this evolutionary idea. Justin Martyr writing in the 2^nd century, said, “Thales, the eldest of all their sages, says that water is the first principle of the things that exist; for he says that all things are from water, and that all things are resolved into water. And he conjectures this, first, from the fact that the seed of all living creatures, which is their first principle, is moist; and secondly, because all plants grow and bear fruit in moisture, but when deprived of moisture, wither. Then, as if not satisfied with his conjectures, he cites Homer as a most trustworthy testimony, who speaks thus:—  ‘Ocean, who is the origin of all.’”¹³⁾Justin Martyr, Address to the Greeks, 5; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 1, p. 275

The quote of Homer, at least in the edition I own, states it this way, “Okeanos, whence is risen the seed of all the immortals.”¹⁴⁾Homer, Iliad 14.246 (trans. Richmond Lattimore), University of Chicago Press, (Chicago, IL: 1951), p. 300 Returning to Justin Martyr, he informs us that there is a succession of this idea that followed after Thales, and his argument is simply what we are expanding upon into the modern culture. In this quote Justin uses the term “natural Philosophy” which is what in the early century of our modern era used the same term but it would eventually become replaced by the word science, or natural science. Justin says, “For Thales of Miletus, who took the lead in the study of natural philosophy, declared that water was the first principle of all things; for from water he says that all things are, and that into water all are resolved. And after him Anaximander… Thirdly, Anaximenes… Heraclitus and Hippasus… Anaxagoras… Archelaus… All these, forming a succession from Thales, followed the philosophy called by themselves physical.”¹⁵⁾Justin Martyr, Address to the Greeks, 3; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 1, p. 274

The Ancient Pagan Origin of the Modern Evolutionary Philosophy (Part 2) Aug. 21, 2023

We are returning to our previous discussion of theistic evolution and more specifically, we are investigating the origin of the evolutionary philosophy which is rooted in ancient paganism. In the last episode we examined a number of ancient sources and determined that much of the modern hypothesis of evolution is developed from ancient Greek philosophers, which they seem to have adapted from the Egyptian myths.

So what we have been seeing as a common thread in these pagan myths is chaos, time, and also water being involved with the spontaneous generation of the deities which are personifications of nature. Hence nature and ultimately all living things arise out of water over a period of time. This in conjunction with chaos is to identify that it was not an act of intelligence, but randomness that brought all things into existence. Furthermore, we find that these ancient Greek “natural philosophers” were the ones that our recent “scientists” took their cues from when developing the modern hypothesis of evolution.

Previously, we looked at some quotes from the ancient Egyptian creation myths, as well as Hesiod’s theogony, and Thales. We also noted that as early as Justin Martyr, these evolution myths were known to have followed a succession of philosophers on into his days, and we are just updating on his work after 1900 years.

Anaximander (610-546 B.C.) is the second person mentioned by Justin Martyr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: p. 34, says, “He conceived of the earth as first existing in a fluid state. From its gradual drying up all living creatures were produced, beginning with men. These aquatic men first appeared in the form of fishes in the water, and they emerged from this element only after they had progressed so far as to be able to further develop and sustain themselves upon land.”¹⁶⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 34

The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion, p. 27 explains, “Anaximaner, of Miletus (died soon after 547 BC), was the first Greek to write a prose treatise ‘On the Nature of Things’ (Peri Physeōs). He thus initiated the tradition of Greek natural philosophy by elaborating a system of the heavens, including an account of the origins of human life, and by leaving his speculation behind in written form…. The first human beings were generated from a sort of embryo floating in the sea.”¹⁷⁾The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion (ed. Simon Price and Emily Kearns), Oxford University Press (New York, NY: 2003), p. 27 Returning to Henry Fairfield Osborn, he relates that his contemporary peers promoting evolution followed Anaximander. Page 33 of From the Greek to Darwin, “Anaximander (611-547), the Milesian, is termed by Haeckel the prophet of Kant and Laplace in Cosmogony, and of Lamarck and Darwin in Biology!”¹⁸⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 33

On page 35 he says “As to the origin of life in the beginning, he was the first teacher of the doctrine of Abiogensis, believing that eels and other aquatic forms are directly produced from lifeless matter.”¹⁹⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 35 The early church father Hippolytus, writing around A.D. 225, says he taught “animals are produced (in moisture) by evaporation of the sun. And that man was, originally, similar to a different animal, that is, a fish.” (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, bk. 1, chap. V; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 5, p. 14)

In The Oxford History of the Classical World, p. 115-116 we find this comment, “Anaximander attempts to explain the visible world as the product of orderly, universal processes, which, he infers, must continually be producing other worlds elsewhere…. Thus the ‘ordinance of Time’ in Anaximander’s system was not a creation of his intellect but can be traced to barbarian theology. There, however, it is a single, non-recurrent act of will; Anaximander made it into something resembling a law of nature. This illustrates an important feature of the Greek philosophers’ approach. They sought to eliminate the arbitrary events characteristic of mythical narratives; but this did not by any means incline them to eliminate divinity from the world. They preferred to depersonalize their gods and identify them with the unchanging forces that govern the working of the universe.”²⁰⁾Martin West, “Early Greek Philosophy,” in The Oxford History of the Classical World (ed. John Broadman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray) Oxford University Press (New York, NY: 1986), p. 115-116

Milton K. Munitz, in his book Space, Time and Creation, p. 13, wrote, “That the ordered world as we know it is not everlasting but arose in some fashion from an earlier primordial state is for Anaximander a belief which is not questioned but rather taken over from mythology.”²¹⁾Milton K. Munitz, Space, Time and Creation, The Free Press (Glencoe, IL: 1957), p. 13 He than writes, “Anaximander reinterprets, while at the same time retaining, basically the same pattern of cosmogonical development that is to be found in the Babylonian myth as this had already partly transformed in the Greek version of Hesiod’s Theogony.”²²⁾Milton K. Munitz, Space, Time and Creation, The Free Press (Glencoe, IL: 1957), p. 13 So what Munitz says would be consistent with what we saw stated earlier in The Oxford History of the Classical World when it compared Thales with Semitic creation myths. The Barbarian or Babylonian myths would be contained in the general broad term Semitic. Of course, following the Biblical account, all of mankind was dispersed from Babel, which in Hebrew is the same word for Babylon all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. If Egypt retain a similar myth, or as Paul James-Griffiths points to the Hindus as the origin, it would likely all come from the starting point of the idolatry at Babel. This would explain why there is a common thread but with variations in all cultures. This would also explain why there is enough similarities with the biblical account but is vastly different making these pagan myths corruptions of truth.

Continuing down the line of our succession, we find Xenophanes in 570-475 B.C. Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin, writes on p. 36, “The ultimate origin of life he traced to spontaneous generation, believing that the sun in warming the earth produces both animals and plants. He is famous in the annals of science as being the first to recognize fossils as remains of animal formerly alive, and to see in them the proofs that the seas formerly covered the earth, and that water was the element from which the earth emerged.”²³⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 36

It is interesting here the Xenophanes investigation as a natural philosopher, acknowledged fossils and concluded that the earth was once covered by water. Of course, multitude of ancient cultures had a worldwide flood in their history. This is also evident that the flood of Noah’s day was known about and continued to be passed down in all people groups after the dispersion from Babel. I find in amazing that while I was in school, the textbooks were teaching that fossils form very slowly, but now, science is willing to admit it takes a sudden flood to bury a dead creature to cause the right conditions to form fossils. But in the 1980s and 90s, the evolution and creation debate was at its peak and evolutionists were more willing to lie in those days about science just to avoid sounding like they are providing support to what creationists were teaching.

The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion, p. 578, speaks of Xenophanes, “In theology and epistemology he was an original and influential thinker. He attacks Homer and Hesiod for portraying the gods as behaving in ways that are blameworthy for mortals. He mocks anthropomorphic conceptions of deity, and undermines the supernatural interpretation of natural phenomena. In place of the Homeric pantheon he offers the vision of a supreme god, ‘greatest among gods and men, like unto mortals neither in body nor in mind’, who without effort sways the universe with his thoughts. Moderns have imagined him a monotheist, but he seems rather to have preached a harmonious polytheism, without conflict among the gods.”²⁴⁾The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion (ed. Simon Price and Emily Kearns), Oxford University Press (New York, NY: 2003), p. 578

So Xenophanes has taken his theology one step further to a logical perception of deity. The early Christians found an easy attack on the Greek pantheon because their gods and goddesses we immoral beings, committing incest, raping each other, murdering each other. Christians argued how can mankind produce laws that were more moral than the deities themselves. In other words, godliness should be the ultimate goal for mankind, but acting like the gods of Greece would be immoral, hence they are no gods. Xenophanes adapted this logical conclusion about the foolish myths and popular views of the pantheon.

Anaxagoras (510-428 B.C.) is discussed by the early church father Irenaeus, who says, “Anaxagoras, again, who has been surnamed ‘Atheist,’ gave it as his opinion that animals were formed from seeds falling down from heaven upon earth.”²⁵⁾Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 2, chap. XIV; Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol 1, p. 376 This is known today as “Direct Panspermia” propagated by Iosif Schlovsky and Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966); Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel, Directed Panspermia (1973); and in recent years by Stephen Hawking and even Richard Dawkins in various interviews. Direct panspermia can be discussed in a variety of ways, as life evolving on other planets and coincidentally finding its way to earth, or have been sent to earth intentionally by intelligent alien life forms. Of course, the intelligent design movement cannot deny this option as the intelligent designer, which is why I am adamant about recognizing an omniscient God, not a mere intelligence who designed.

Notably, Irenaeus calls Anaxagoras an atheist. This word was used more broadly in the ancient world, as even Christians were called “atheist” for denying the pantheon of gods. Henry Fairfield Osborn, states, “According to Plato and Aristotle, this philosopher [Anaxagoras] was the first to attribute adaptation in Nature to Intelligent Design, and was thus the founder of Teleology. He also was the first to trace the origin of animals and plants to pre-existing germs in the air or ether. That the idea of Design was only developed in his mind to a very limited extent is shown in his history of the Universe. All things existed, in some form, from the beginning. There was the germs, seeds, or miniatures of plants, animals, and minerals intermingled in the mass of matter. These germs had to be separated from the mass and arranged under direction of Mind or Reason.”²⁶⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 42 So Anaxagoras conceived the idea of Nous, i.e. Mind or Reason, which was independent of the material cosmos and directed and gave order to these germs or seeds to develop into all life. We see here in Anaxagoras as the earliest expression of theistic evolution, as the previous expressions identified the gods arising spontaneously from chaos.

Speaking of Empedocles, Osborn mentions, “He thus simply modified the abiogenetic hypothesis, and, by happy conjecture, gave his theory a semblance of modern Evolution, with four sparks of truth,—first, that the development of life was a gradual process; second, that plants were evolved before animals; third, that imperfect forms were gradually replaced (not succeeded) by perfect forms; fourth, that the natural cause of the production of perfect forms as the extinction of the imperfect.”²⁷⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 41

Osborn elaborates: “Empedocles of Agrigentum (495-435) took a great stride beyond his predecessors, and may justly be call the father of the Evolution idea. He was not only a poet and musician, but made the first observations in Embryology which are recorded…. He believed in Abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation, as the explanation of the origin of life, but that Nature does not produce the lower and higher forms simultaneously or without an effort. Plant life came first, and animal life developed only after a long series of trials. After the first formation of the earth, and before it was surrounded by the sun, plants arose, and from their budding forth came animals. But this origin he believed to be a very gradual process, for even now the living world presents a series of incomplete products. All organisms arose through the fortuitous play of the two great forces of Nature upon the four elements. Thus animals first appeared, not as complete individuals, but as parts of individuals,—heads without necks, arms without shoulders, eyes without their sockets…. Thus out of this confused play of bodies, all kinds of accidental and extraordinary beings arose… But these unnatural products soon became extinct, because they were not capable of propagation.”²⁸⁾Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, pp. 37-38

Lucretius, relates this view in a poem:

“Wherefore, again, again, how merited Is that adopted name of Earth- The Mother!- Since she herself begat the human race…For lapsing aeons change the nature of The whole wide world, and all things needs must take One status after other, nor aught persists Forever like itself transformation. …In such wise, then, the lapsing aeons change The nature of the whole wide world, and earth Taketh one status after other. And what She bore of old, she now can bear no longer, And what she never bore, she can to-day.

In those days also the telluric world Strove to beget the monsters that up sprung With their astounding visages and limbs- The Man-woman- a thing betwixt the twain, Yet neither, and from . All things depart; Nature she changeth all, compelleth all To either sex remote- Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet, Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye, Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms Cleaving unto the body fore and aft, Thus wise, that never could they do or go, Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would. And other prodigies and monsters earth Was then begetting of this sort- in vain, Since Nature banned with horror their increase, And powerless were they to reach unto The coveted flower of fair maturity, Or to find aliment, or to intertwine In works of Venus. For we see there must Concur in life conditions manifold, If life is ever by begetting life To forge the generations one by one: First, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby The seeds of impregnation in the frame May ooze, released from the members all; Last, the possession of those instruments Whereby the male with female can unite, The one with other in mutual ravishments.”²⁹⁾Lucretius. De Rerum Natura 5.821-854; William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

What we see in this poem is an absurd idea of random limbs arising spontaneously and seeking to find matches that would contribute to their ability to procreate. This is a forerunner of what Charles Darwin called survival of the fittest. Darwin defined the fittest as who leaves the most offspring. Hence, it is the capability to leave offspring that makes one survive. The rest died off as in this poem.

Also, notice the poem begins with the expression, “how merited Is that adopted name of Earth- The Mother!- Since she herself begat the human race.” This is an expression of Mother Earth worship which remains in circles of popular pseudoscience. The Gaia hypothesis was propagated by Dr. James Lovelock write, “In times that are ancient by human measure, as far back as the earliest artifacts can be found, it seems that the Earth was worshipped as a goddess and believed to be alive. The myth of the great Mother is part of most early religions.”³⁰⁾James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia, Bantam Books (New York, NY: 1988, 1990), p. 208 Lovelock provide a scientific sounding premise for worshipping Mother Earth. Carl Teichrib writes, “Vice President Al Gore was also drawn into Lovelock’s hypothesis.”³¹⁾Carl Teichrib, Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment, Whitemud House Publishing (2018), p. 209

This Earth worship was refuted by early Christians, such as Clement of Alexandria. “Why, I pray you, have you assigned the prerogatives of God to what are no gods? Why, let me ask, have you forsaken heaven to pay divine honour to earth? What else is gold, or silver, or steel, or iron, or brass, or ivory, or precious stones? Are they not earth, and of the earth? Are not all these things which you look on the progeny of one mother — the earth?… But I have been in the habit of walking on the earth, not of worshipping it.”³²⁾Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 4; The Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), vol. 2, p. 188

He also said, “Atheists surely these are to be reckoned, who through an unwise wisdom worshipped matter, who did not indeed pay religious honour to stocks and stones, but deified earth, the mother of these — who did not make an image of Poseidon, but revered water itself.”³³⁾Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 5; The Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), vol. 2, p. 190

Philo of Alexandria, as a Jew in the first century, also refuted these evolutionary ideas. Philo says, “for they say that the generation of mankind by means of one another is a more recent work of nature, but that the more original and ancient mode of their birth is out of the earth, since she both is and is considered the mother of all men. And they say that those men who are celebrated among the Greeks as having sprung from seed were produced and grew up as trees do now, being perfect and completely armed sons of the earth. But that this is a mere fiction of fable it is easy to see from many circumstances.”³⁴⁾Philo, On the Eternity of the World 57-58; in The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. 713 And Again, Philo says, “Can we compare those who honour the elements, earth, water, air, and fire? to whom different nations have given different names, calling fire Hephaestus, I imagine because of its kindling, and the air Hera, I imagine because of its being raised up, and raised aloft to a great height, and water Poseidon, probably because of its being drinkable, and the earth Demeter, because it appears to be the Mother of all plants and of all animals.”³⁵⁾Philo, On the Contemplative Life, 3; in The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. 699

Even Philo and the Christians of the Alexandrian school rejected these ideas of evolution, although they were very involved with synchronizing the Greek philosophers with the Bible. This fact tells us that the modern theistic evolution views are an extreme perversion of biblical truth.

Well that is all the time we have for today. I knew we wouldn’t get very far on this topic. Actually, I’m running from my notes on a power-point presentation I prepared last year for a meeting but it got canceled. The full power-point is 60 slides and we only made it through 28 in these two episodes, so we will dwell on this topic for a few more episodes. We will take up the discussion with Aristotle next time. Hopefully everyone else will find this topic as interesting as I do and will enjoy the discussion.

The Ancient Pagan Origin of the Modern Evolutionary Philosophy (Part 3) Aug. 28, 2023

As we continue in our assessment of ancient pagan authors and their influence on the modern ideas of evolution, we begin today with one of the major influencers—Aristotle. Charles Darwin actually acknowledge Aristotle in his introduction to The Origin of Species, as a forerunner for his philosophy in the fifth and sixth editions published in 1869 and 1872.

Aristotle lived from 341- 270 B.C. left a major impact on Western society. Aaron Judkins, states in his book Evolution and Human Fossil Footprints, pp. 27-28 “According to Aristotle, species can be arranged in a hierarchy from the simplest to the most complex and aligned in a linear form like steps in a ladder; he called this thesis the Scala Naturae. This idea of Aristotle’s would deeply influence western thought until the eighteenth century and was later to become the origin of belief in the Great Chain of Being, which in turn, became the theory of evolution…. According to the Scala Naturae which had been accepted for 2,000 years, living things formed by themselves, evolving from minerals to organic matter, to living organisms, to plants, to animals, to human beings and, finally, to ‘gods.’”³⁶⁾Aaron Judkins, Evolution and Human Fossil Footprints, Bible Belt Publishing (Oklahoma City, OK: 2009), pp. 27-28

This is exactly what we find as a poem presented in the preface to Erasmus Darwin’s book Zoonomia. We will quote a portion of it later when we discuss Erasmus. Erasmus was the paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was heavily influenced by his grandfather’s view, but avoided giving credit to his grandfather’s opinions because of his mischievous political connections.

Ian Taylor spoke of Aristotle’s conception of the Scala Naturae in his book In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), pp. 9-10.

“Aristotle recognized that there was great order in the living world, which seemingly graduated as a scala natura, or living ladder, from the smallest creature at the bottom to the prime mover at the top. (Aristotle thus found it difficult to believe that a single great intelligence could direct every day-to-day detail. He reasoned that the Creator had given to every living thing, even to individual organs, an teleological principle, or built-in purpose, so that throughout all time each organ would develop according to a plan…. By ascribing purpose to nature, Aristotle gave nature a characteristic of the deity, and, in a subtle way, this has tended to redirect men’s attention towards the complete personification and even deification of nature itself.”³⁷⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), pp. 9-10

If you caught what he is saying here and are familiar with modern evolutionary thought, what was just described about Aristotle’s philosophy and contribution to Darwinism is the main mechanism of evolution, what we call “natural selection.” The ancient Natural philosophers and modern evolutionists attribute the evidence of design to “natural selection,” which is a reification fallacy, accrediting personal selective intelligence to an abstract concept such as nature. Personifying nature with divine creative attributes is paganism.

For those who have been following this podcast series on the ancient evolutionists, we have seen how they are slowly removing the involvement of deities out of the creation myths. It started with the gods themselves spontaneously generating in chaos to create the everything else that exists, than spontaneous generation of living creatures without the gods creating (though the gods were still acknowledged), Than survival of the fittest as those who could produce offspring after developing the ability after being spontaneously generated. With Aristotle, it becomes nature generating the Great Chain of Being, a step ladder to higher life forms which will eventually become gods.

Aristotle’s concept of creation was deistic. His view of God was what he called the unmoved mover, who apparently unintentionally set the ball rolling which would the natural development of all things. But Aristotle’s god was not engaged in this act of creation nor does this god intervene with the creation. It is very much a deistic conception of deity.

After Aristotle, it comes to no surprise that the next development in this thinking is Epikouros, who is the originating teacher of the doctrines we encounter Acts 17:18 which mentions the Epicureans in Athens. David Cloud explains in his book, An Unshakable Faith, p. 193 “The Greek Epicureans believed that the universe evolved through naturalistic mechanisms apart from God or the supernatural.”³⁸⁾David Cloud, An Unshakable Faith, Way of Life Literature, (Port Huron, MI: 2011), p. 193

The early church father Hippolytus explained:

“Acknowledging the Deity to be eternal and incorruptible, he says that God has providential care for nothing, and that there is no such thing as providence or fate, but that all things are made by chance.”³⁹⁾Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, bk. 1, chap. XIX; The Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), vol. 5, p. 21

Another early church father, Lantantius, said, “Therefore Epicurus saw in the bodies of animals the skill of a divine plan; but that he might carry into effect that which he had before imprudently assumed, he added another absurdity agreeing with the former. For he said that the eyes were not produced for seeing, nor the ears for hearing, nor the feet for walking, since these members were produced before there was the exercise of seeing, hearing, and walking; but that all the offices of these members arose from them after their production. I fear lest the refutation of such extravagant and ridiculous stories should appear to be no less foolish; but it pleases me to be foolish, since we are dealing with a foolish man, lest he should think himself too clever. What do you say, Epicurus? Were not the eyes produced for seeing? Why, then, do they see? Their use, he says, afterwards showed itself. Therefore they were produced for the sake of seeing, since they can do nothing else but see. Likewise, in the case of the other limbs, use itself shows for what purpose they were produced. For it is plain that this use could have no existence, unless all the limbs had been made with such arrangement and foresight, that they might be able to have their use.”⁴⁰⁾Lactantius, On the Workmanship of God 6; The Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), vol. 7, p. 287

Lactantius is simply arguing for teleology. That is the obvious design shows the obvious purpose for everything created. This logic indicates the eye can see and does nothing else but see, so that is what it was designed to do. How could anyone even imagine the eye doing something other than seeing? Or, if the eye developed without the intended purpose of seeing, why is it able to see? Modern evolutionists are diligently attempting to deny any form of purpose or design in creation.

Titus Lucretius Carus (99-55 B.C.) whose poem we quoted from in last episode, again is worth quoting on this point. He wrote in his poem De Rerum Natura 2.1048-1104, “Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things By innate motion chanced to clash and cling- After they’d been in many a manner driven Together at random, without design, in vain-And as at last those seeds together dwelt, Which, when together of a sudden thrown, Should alway furnish the commencements fit Of mighty things- the earth, the sea, the sky, And race of living creatures…. Which well perceived if thou hold in mind, Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord, And forthwith free, is seen to do all things Herself and through herself of own accord, Rid of all gods.”⁴¹⁾Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 2.1048-1104; William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

So we see that the whole thought process is moving in the direction of atheism, while it was during the earlier ages sort of more theistically directed.

Taking a step backwards in history, it is necessary to touch on Plato here, even though chronologically he precedes Aristotle. Plato was from 428-348 B.C. Lactantius, the early church father makes this observation. “Plato and many others of the philosophers, since they were ignorant of the origin of all things, and of that primal period at which the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed; and in this they perhaps followed the Chaldeans, who, as Cicero has related in his first book respecting divination, foolishly say that they possess comprised in their memorials four hundred and seventy thousand years; in which matter, because they thought that they could not be convicted, they believed that they were at liberty to speak falsely. But we, whom the Holy Scriptures instruct to the knowledge of the truth, know the beginning and the end of the world, respecting which we will now speak in the end of our work, since we have explained respecting the beginning in the second book. Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed[.]”⁴²⁾Lactantius, The Divine Institue 7. 14; The Ante Nicene Fathers, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), vol. 7, p. 211

What is important here is that our attention is directed once again to Babylon as the influence of these ideas, as was mentioned in the previous episode that it is likely that these ideas started before the dispersion of Babel. Also, noted is these natural philosophers find the need to inflate long ages to permit the arrangement of the world to be completed. Obviously, the Christian worldview had not rejected the clear teachings of Genesis, that the creation is not yet 6,000 years old.

The reason we held off mentioning Plato before was because we need to discuss Neo-Platonism, which was developed by Plotinos. Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, p. 208-209, “The philosophy of Neo-Platonism was the system especially adapted by Augustine to Christianity. This system was mainly formulated by Plotinus (A.D. 205-270), who was born in Egypt but mostly lived in Rome. His system had high ideals but was almost pure mysticism and pantheism. Plotinus was primarily responsible for the form of the Great Chain of Being as it was transmitted through the Dark Ages. In his philosophy, the whole world is the universal ‘soul’ from which all things are ‘created’ in a constantly descending stream. There is no true beginning and no ending, of either the cosmos or of individuals. Souls that have lived unrighteously are reincarnated in the bodies of lower animals, but there is an eternal striving upward toward the unattainable ‘Yonder.’”⁴³⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 208-209

As we have been quoting a number of early church fathers throughout this and previous episodes of this series, it is important to say it bluntly, Christians historically rejected these evolutionary ideas. They refused to synchronize this pagan concept with the Bible. It should be an obvious mark of apostasy in Christianity today when people, and specifically “scholars” identify themselves as Christian and accept evolution as a valid origin.

Justin Martyr wrote in the second century. “Those, then, who are called natural philosophers, say, some of them, as Plato, that the universe is matter and God; others, as Epicurus, that it is atoms and the void; others, like the Stoics, that it is these four — fire, water, air, earth. For it is sufficient to mention the most prevalent opinions. And Plato says that all things are made from matter by God, and according to His design; but Epicures and his followers say that all things are made from the atom and the void by some kind of self-regulating action of the natural movement of the bodies; and the Stoics, that all are made of the four elements, God pervading them.”⁴⁴⁾Justin Marty, On the Resurrection 6; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 1, p. 296

Theophilus also discussed the age of creation to refute the pagan myths, saying, “but to throw light upon the number of years from the foundation of the world, and to condemn the empty labour and trifling of these authors, because there have neither been twenty thousand times ten thousand years from the flood to the present time, as Plato said, affirming that there had been so many years; nor yet 15 times 10,375 years, as we have already mentioned Apollonius the Egyptian gave out; nor is the world uncreated, nor is there a spontaneous production of all things, as Pythagoras and the rest dreamed; but, being indeed created, it is also governed by the providence of God, who made all things…”⁴⁵⁾Theophilus, To Autolycus 3.26; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 2, p. 119

Now, according to the early church fathers who battled against the gnostic heretics, the evolutionary ideas were adopted by their heretical theology. Irenaeus stated, “Having thus formed the world, he (the Demiurge) also created the earthy [part of] man, not taking him from this dry earth, but from an invisible substance consisting of fusible and fluid matter, and then afterwards, as they define the process, breathed into him the animal part of his nature. It was this latter which was created after his image and likeness. The material part, indeed, was very near to God, so far as the image went, but not of the same substance with him. The animal, on the other hand, was so in respect to likeness; and hence his substance was called the spirit of life, because it took its rise from a spiritual outflowing. After all this, he was, they say, enveloped all round with a covering of skin; and by this they mean the outward sensitive flesh.”⁴⁶⁾Irenaeus, Against Heresy, 1.5.5; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 1, p.  323

So mankind was infused with a spirit while the natural parts was that of an animal. This is what we saw being taught by theistic evolutionists like Francis Collins and theologian Tremper Longman. The claim that an ape-like ancestor was imparted a spirit at some part in history, which made him conscious of his unique humanness and relation towards God. Such foolishness is a modern form of Gnosticism.

Tertullian wrote, “Saturninus, the disciple of Menander, who belonged to Simon’s sect, introduced this opinion: he affirmed that man was made by angels. A futile, imperfect creation at first, weak and unable to stand, he crawled upon the ground like a worm, because he wanted the strength to maintain an erect posture; but afterwards having, by the compassion of the Supreme Power (in whose image, which had not been fully understood, he was clumsily formed), obtained a slender spark of life, this roused and righted his imperfect form, and animated it with a higher vitality, and provided for its return, on its relinquishment of life, to its original principle.”⁴⁷⁾Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul 23; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 3, p. 203

So Gnosticism was claiming that mankind’s origin was from inferior beings, either lesser god or angels, and that we moved of the great chain of being from a worm to finally standing erect as man. I wonder if the “Christian” scientists and theologians propagating theistic evolution are aware of the fact that their views are following paganism and the ancient Gnostic heretics which devised a synthesis of pagan and Christian teachings. This is why I wanted to end the discussion of ancient pagan authors with Plato and Plotinus, the father of Neo-Platonism. Plato taught about the Demiurge, which is where Gnostics took their view from. The Gnostics views this Demiurge as an evil inferior god, often considered to be the god of the old Testament. Plotinus attacked the Gnostic ideas as pessimistic, and rejects the idea of an evil creator of the cosmos. Both the Gnostics and Plotinus take their views as adapted from Plato, and both views can be seen in evolutionary thinking.

While some evolutionists see the nature of their idea with the red tooth and claw existence, “no design… nothing but blind pitiless chance.” This is a quote from Richard Dawkins, though I’m working from memory so it may not be perfectly verbatim. But, still others see evolution as the means of rising above and becoming exalted beings, even becoming gods. These views, at least as they are both presented today, represent the atheistic concept of evolution and the spiritual concept of evolution, most often connected with New Age spirituality. However, Christian theistic evolutionists would have to take this optimistic view of evolution following Plotinus, otherwise the theistic evolutionists would have to envision their god as an evil demiurge who used such a wasteful and violent means to produce life on earth as we know it today over the millions of years of evolution.

Im hoping that putting some of this historical background would help those who hold to a theistic evolution realize that evolution is not scientific, its an ancient pagan philosophy; nor compatible with theology of historic Christianity. In the next episode we will discuss the Great Chain of Being and how this concept was influential in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundred as the evolutionary philosophy began to be promoted again by men who used it to attack Christianity.

The Ancient Pagan Origin of the Modern Evolutionary Philosophy (Part 4) Sept. 5, 2023

Our journey through history to review the ideas behind the modern philosophy of evolution has brought us from ancient Babylon, Egypt, and we have dwelt much longer on the Greek philosophers. In case I have neglected to mentioned it previously, I refuse to refer to evolution as a theory, since in scientific thought a theory is well established. According to science, evolution would have to remain being considered a hypothesis since there is so much actual scientific fact that goes against the idea.

Actually it should be discarded from science all together but has not and will not because so many atheists desire to keep it alive in the field of science since there is no other option to consider origins accept divine creation. Personally, I consider, and will continue to refer to evolution as a philosophy because it was propagated through Greek philosophers.

We have discussed the Greek philosophers and natural philosophers, and how their views were synchronized with biblical terms by the Gnostic heretics. I will again identify that Christians historically rejected these evolutionary ideas. They refused to synchronize this pagan concept with the Bible. It should be an obvious mark of apostasy in Christianity today when people, and specifically “scholars” identify themselves as Christian and accept evolution as a valid origin.

Today we will begin our discussion on the Great Chain of Being. Henry Morris, in The Long War Against God, p. 185, stated, “[Comte de] Buffon, in common with most other scientists of his day, was still basically thinking in terms of the ’Great Chain of Being,’ more or less equivalent to Aristotle’s Scala Natura. This concept can be traced back to Plato, but it was especially popular from the Renaissance on through the 18^th century.”⁴⁸⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 185

Also, Ian T. Taylor, in his book In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), p. 49, wrote, “[Jean] Lamarck had been very much influenced by Buffon, and, like his mentor, had a rich imagination. His Philosophie zoologique, was published in 1809, and in this he expanded on his theory for the origin of the variety of life forms, past and present. Like others of his time, Lamarck saw living things as forming a hierarchy, from lowest orders with the least specialization to the highest with the greatest specialization. This was referred to as, ‘the great chain of being’. It would be a long time before such expressions were replaced by the word ‘evolution’.”⁴⁹⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), 49

Returning to Henry Morris, on p. 187 of The Long War Against God, said, “Another very important application of the Great Chain of Being was made in the study of embryology. Since man was at the top of the scale, with one-celled organisms at the bottom, these ‘nature philosophers’ began to teach that this sequence was also expressed in the embryonic development of human beings in the womb. This idea eventually became the recapitulation theory, but it was proposed initially not as an evolutionary concept, but as an illustration of the Chain of Being.”⁵⁰⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 187 For those familiar with the evolutionary thought throughout history, the recapitulation theory, which is not a valid theory according to the scientific meaning of the word theory, was promoted by Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that the embryos recapitulated, or developed through the various stages of evolution while in the womb. Today, this debunked idea is still taught in college textbooks with the claim that embryos have gill slits. Jay Phelan’s biology textbook What is Life, was still teaching this lie in the 2015 edition.⁵¹⁾Jay Phelan, What is Life?: A Guide to Biology (Third Edition), W.H. Freeman & Company (New York, NY: 2015).

Evolution, having its roots in ancient paganism, continued to be expressed through history by other pagans and specifically spiritualists, such as Emanuel Swedenborg (1688- 1772). One of Swedenborg’s biographers spoke of his literary work, The Worship of Love and God, says, “It essays to give an account of creation, first describing the birth of the planets from the sun. Our own earth, when it had at length broken free from the nebulous ring which surrounded the sun, and from which it had its origin, was gradually prepared for the germs of life…. The earliest forms of vegetable life were herbs and lowly flowers, which clothed the surface of the earth with beauty, after these, shrubs and plants; and finally, trees. From the vegetable world proceeded the primal forms of animal life, the earliest being insects… and eventually hatched into birds… Lastly came man…”⁵²⁾George Trobridge, Swedenborg: Life and Teaching, Swedenborg Foundation, 1944, p. 75-77

Swedenborg had described what today is called the Nebular hypothesis which is the expression of an evolutionary origin solar system. This is accepted by many scientists and taught as fact in probably every public school, but was dictated to Swedenborg by spirits as a religious premise which he invented and indoctrinated in his cult.

After Swedenborg, and revealing how the evolutionary concept which was first religious but has become atheistic, secret societies were involved with promoting the ideas as a secular doctrine of origins. Caryl Matrisciana and Roger Oakland, in their book, The Evolution Conspiracy, p. 58-59 relate, “One group of heretical thinkers belonged to an organization called the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which met once a month at the time of the full moon. This aristocratic group of men sought social change and the advancement of a secular society. Active from 1764 to 1800, the group never included more than 14 members. These members were, however, some of the most influential men in England, and their primary intention was to remove the church from a position of power in Great Britain…. The founder of the Lunar Society was a man named Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin. Erasmus Darwin’s contribution to the emerging view of evolution was a two-volume work written in 1794-96 call the Zoonomia.”⁵³⁾CarylMatrisciana and Roger Oakland, The Evolution Conspiracy, Harvest House Publishers (Eugene, OR:1991), p. 58-59

This organization included men such as Erasmus Darwin, John Wilkinson, James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestly, Josiah Wedgwood, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Day, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Samuel Galton Jr., Robert Augustus Johnson, James Keir, William Small, Jonathan Stokes, John Whitehurst, William Withering, James Hutton. To relate just a few of these individuals, William Small was professor of natural philosophy. Joseph Priestly, a Unitarian theologian, wrote An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782) denying miracles, the virgin birth, and the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and supported French Socialist revolution which intended to overthrow the church and king. Concerning James Hutton, Caryl Matrisciana and Roger Oakland wrote in, The Evolution Conspiracy, p. 59, “Hutton proposed that the earth had been molded not by sudden violent events, but by slow and gradual processes—the same processes that can be observed in the world today. This theory became known as ‘uniformitarianism.’”⁵⁴⁾Caryl Matrisciana and Roger Oakland, The Evolution Conspiracy, Harvest House Publishers (Eugene, OR:1991), p. 59 And Erasmus Darwin, the paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin, was involved with radical politics promoting the French revolution.

Henry Fairfield Osborn, said about Erasmus in From the Greek to Darwin: p. 142 “As to the origin of life, he drew from the Greeks, especially from Aristotle, limiting spontaneous generation, however, to the lowest organisms; they also gave him the fundamental idea of Evolution, for he says, “This idea of the gradual formation and improvement of the Animal world seems not to have been unknown to the ancient philosophers.” ^{55)Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greek to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea, Forgotten Books, 2012, originally published by Macmillan and Co. New York, 1894, p. 142}

In the preface of the first volume of Zoonomia: Or, the Laws of Organic Life, published in  1796, Erasmus wrote,  “HAIL TO THE BARD! who sung, from Chaos hurl’d How suns and planets form’d the whirling world;… How the first embryon-fibre, sphere, or cube, Lives in new forms,—a line,—a ring,—a tube; Closed in the womb with limbs unfinish’d laves, Sips with rude mouth the salutary waves; Seeks round its cell the sanguine streams, that pass, And drinks with crimson gills the vital gas;… Erewhile, emerging from its liquid bed, It lifts in gelid air its nodding head; The lights first dawn with trembling eyelid hails, With lungs untaught arrests the balmy gales;… Till, link by link with step aspiring trod, You climb from NATURE to the throne of GOD.”⁵⁶⁾Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia: Or, the Laws of Organic Life, J. Johnson (London: 1796), Vol. 1,  preface In this preface we can see the Nebular hypothesis of spiritualist Emanuel Swedenborg, and Erasmus is following the poetry to promote the evolutionary idea just as we saw the ancient author Lucretius, who we had quote in previous episodes. It is probably accurate to assume he was imitating the pagan poet.

David Cloud wrote of Erasmus in An Unshakable Faith, p. 193-194, “The history of modern evolution begins with Charles Darwin’s influential paternal grandfather Erasmus…. Erasmus believed in the evolution of life from an organic microscopic biological speck to man…. Erasmus was influenced by his friend James Hutton’s view of long geological ages and uniformitarianism…. Erasmus proclaimed his doctrine of evolution in a popular two-volume set of books entitled Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life (1794-96).”⁵⁷⁾David Cloud, An Unshakable Faith, Way of Life Literature (Port Huron, MI: 2011), p. 193-194 It is also important to be noted that Erasmus was a leader in the secret society of Freemason.

Concerning Freemasonry, one publication from the masonic lodge, states, “The presence in the modern Masonic system, of many of the emblems, symbols, and allegories of the ancient Temples  of Initiation, as well as certain rites performed therein, has persuaded the most learned among Masonic scholars to conclude that Masonry is of very ancient origin, and is, in some aspects, the modern successor of, and heir of, the sublime Mysteries of the Temple of Solomon, and of the Temples of India, Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the basic doctrines of the Essenes, Gnostics and other mystic Orders.”⁵⁸⁾Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F. and A.M., Monitor of the Lodges: Monitorial Instructions in the Three Degrees of Symbolic Masonry, Grand Lodge of Texas, 1982, p. XIV

One of Masonry’s leading authors Manly P. Hall, wrote in his book Lost Keys of Freemasonry, p. v. “Freemasonry is therefore more than a mere social organization a few centuries old, and can be regarded as a perpetuation of the philosophic mysteries and initiations of the ancients.”⁵⁹⁾Manly P. Hall, Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Macoy  Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, Inc., 1976, p. v. Another top masonic scholar said, “Pike seems never to have entertained any other idea from first to last than that Freemasonry was the direct descendent of the Ancient Pagan Mysteries.”⁶⁰⁾Henry Wilson Coil, Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia, Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, Inc., 1961, p. 374 So we find the secret societies involved with bring the modern development and propagation of evolution to be involved with ancient pagan and Gnostic theology, and openly engaged in attacking God and the Bible.

As we turn now to Charles Darwin, Ian T. Taylor, says in his book, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), p. 114 “It was during this period [while attending Edinburgh University] that he found time to read his grandfather’s then widely read Zoönomia. This, then, was the intellectual atmosphere in which Darwin found himself during two of his most formative years. Interestingly, grandfather Erasmus, unitarian Joseph Priestly and geologist James Hutton had all attended the same university in their youth and, it can be concluded from their writings, had abandoned any belief they had ever had in the orthodox Christian faith.”⁶¹⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), p. 114

And Henry Morris wrote, “It may well be that Charles’ Darwin’s notorious lack of acknowledgement of his grandfather’s numerous contributions to his own theory was because of his reluctance to be identified with the older man’s sociopolitical views. This was undoubtedly a cause of his well-known refusal to allow Karl Marx to dedicate Das Kapital to him.”⁶²⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 177

Ian T. Taylor’s, In the Minds of Men, pp. 374-375, makes this observation. “An interesting aside here is that Darwin attached an historical sketch to the fifth (1869) and sixth (1872) editions of his Origins’, in which he quoted Aristotle as the classical forerunner of his own view: that chance and chance alone was responsible for natural selection (p. XV). This was Darwin’s only reference to the Greek philosophers, and in that he tripped up rather badly. He had taken the quote from Aristotle’s Physics, where Aristotle (1961 ed., 36) set out Empedocles’ argument for chance processes and then proceeded to show how impossible this must be. Aristotle had always maintained that nature herself is the builder, proceeding according to an inner plan and idea (teleology) and always striving after the better…. Darwin had in fact taken Aristotle out of context and turned him on his head to support his own theory of evolution based on chance.”⁶³⁾Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Sixth Edition), TFE Publishing (Foley, MN: 1984, 2008), pp. 374-75 What we discover from this comment is that Charles Darwin was well aware of the pagan influence, also this is obvious since he was well acquainted with his grandfathers works. Also, the reference from Aristotle relating to Empedocles whose evolutionary philosophy what put to poetry by Lucretius is evidence that he truly was imitated by Erasmus.

Morris also noted, “Interestingly enough, the modern resurgence of pantheism and associated occultism—including spiritism—coincide with the rise and triumph of Darwinism.”⁶⁴⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 168 The pagan and occultism connected with evolution is further evident with Alfred Wallace. Wallace invented the term “Natural Selection” and is considered the co-founder of Evolution, but his contribution was ignored because his spiritual beliefs. “Wallace was an admirer of Madame Helena Blavatsky, organizer of the Theosophical Society in 1875. Blavatsky, along with such high ranking occultists as Annie Basant (suffragette and feminist) and Alice Bailey, were also Masons.”⁶⁵⁾Caryl Matrisciana and Roger Oakland, The Evolution Conspiracy, Harvest House Publishers (Eugene, OR:1991), p. 205

Henry Morris wrote about Wallace, in The Long War Against God, p. 171 “he eventually became not only a believer in spiritism and occultism, but a leader in the movement, investigating and promoting it with the same scientific thoroughness that he had devoted to biology and the species question. In 1876 Wallace published one of the definitive evidential textbooks on spiritism, a book entitled Miracles and Modern Spiritualism. Even before that, he had published a widely read two-part article, setting forth in considerable detail the physical phenomena attributable to the action of disembodied spirits (e.g., preserving from effects of fire, musical sounds, automatic writing, apparitions, clairvoyance, trance-speaking, healings, etc.).”⁶⁶⁾Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books (Green Forest, AR: 1989, 2017), p. 171

Madame Helena Blavatsky in her main book of her occult society mentions Wallace⁶⁷⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, pp. 107, 339; mentions Darwin⁶⁸⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, pp. 155, 339; mentions Plato’s evolutionary premise⁶⁹⁾Helena Blavatsky,The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy,Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, p. 162; mentions her occult doctrine of origins is based on ancient cosmogonies⁷⁰⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, p. 272; and notes occultism’s differences with Darwinian evolution⁷¹⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, p. 186-189. Due to her occultic spiritualist ideology, her evolutionary view was returning to the earliest pagan premise of theistic evolution. She wrote in The Secret Doctrine: the Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, p. 274 first published n 1888: “There is no such thing as either ‘dead’ or ‘blind’ matter, as there is no ‘Blind’ or ‘Unconscious’ Law. These find no place among the conception of Occult philosophy…. The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man—the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm—is living witness to this Universal Law and to the mode of its action.”⁷²⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, 274

She further related, “Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes man, passes through all the forms and kingdoms during the first Round and through all the human shapes during the two following Rounds. Arrived on our Earth at the commencement of the Fourth in the present series of life-cycles and races, MAN is the first form that appears thereon, being preceded only by the mineral and vegetable kingdoms—even the latter having to develop and continue its further evolution through man…. Man tends to become a God and then—God, like every other atom in the Universe.”⁷³⁾Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Theosophical University Press Pasadena, CA: 1988), Vol. 1, p. 159

Now we will close this series of podcast with once again quoting the early church father Lactantius, who wrote, “For they were not only unwilling to maintain religion, but they even took it away; while, led on by the appearance of false Virtue, they endeavour to free the mind from all fear: and this overturning of religion gains the name of nature. For they, either being ignorant by whom the world was made, or wishing to persuade men that nothing was completed by divine intelligence, said that nature was the mother of all things, as though they should say that all things were produced of their own accord: by which word they altogether confess their own ignorance. For nature, apart from divine providence and power, is absolutely nothing. But if they call God nature, what perverseness is it, to use the name of nature rather than of God! But if nature is the plan, or necessity, or condition of birth, it is not by itself capable of sensation; but there must necessarily be a divine mind, which by its foresight furnishes the beginning of their  existence to all things. Or if nature is heaven and earth, and everything which is created, nature is not God, but the work of God.”⁷⁴⁾Lactantius, The Divine Institute 2.28; The Ante Nicene Father, (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 2012), Vol. 7, p. 97

Also, the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote, “For some men, admiring the world itself rather than the Creator of the world, have represented it as existing without any maker, and eternal; and as impiously as falsely have represented God as existing in a state of complete inactivity, while it would have been right on the other hand to marvel at the might of God as the creator and father of all, and to admire the world in a degree not exceeding the bounds of moderation…. And those who describe it as being uncreated, do, without being aware of it, cut off the most useful and necessary of all the qualities which tend to produce piety, namely, providence[.]”⁷⁵⁾Philo, On the Creation 8-9; in The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. 3

I close with these quotes just as a reminder that Jews and Christians have always historically rejected evolution and it was the Gnostic heretics that synthesized the pagan evolutionary ideas with biblical terminology. The Bible and evolution are incompatible. Christians who accept, believe, or teach theistic evolution are indoctrinating an oxymoronic opinion. Theologians such as Tremper Longman and apologists like William Lane Craig, whose book In Quest for the Historical Adam, like Longman, considers the creation account of Genesis mytho-historical. Instead, these compromised Christians prefer the myth of pagans to synchronized with the Bible. As we discussed in a previous episode, Francis Collins holds a deistic view of origins, while these men have a Gnostic view of Genesis. This is exactly why I have warned about the neo-Gnostic apostasy providing the path that gives rise to the antichrist in my book Crept In Unawares: Mysticism, and discussed the issue in previous podcasts.