Forked Tongues

True Christians have long been aware of the fundamental contradiction between a literal interpretation of Scripture and the doctrines of Darwinism. Genesis clearly states that the Earth, seas and all plant life were created on the third day, the heavenly bodies on the fourth, marine life and birds on the fifth, and all other life, including Man, on the sixth (Genesis 1:9-31). Evolutionary biology disagrees on both the time scale and the order of these events and it is not the only science in conflict with the Bible. Geology and astronomy argue that the Earth is billions of years old and the rest of the universe was created billions of years before that in an alleged "big bang". Astronomical claims as to the size of the universe and physics' ideas about the speed of light also contradict the Genesis evidence that the Earth and living things preceded the creation of the firmament. These ideas have little in common with the Old Testament and are totally inconsistent with the Biblical account of Creation. As we shall see, these are not the only branches of science whose dogmas cannot be reconciled with Scripture.

Religious scholars have determined that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, but you don't have to take their word for it: just examine Genesis 5:3-32, Genesis 11:10-26 and Mathew 1:2-16. A quick sum of the begats, assuming a more moderate age for fatherhood after the Flood, shows Archbishop Ussher's date for the Creation (4004 B.C.) can't be far off. These time scales do not agree with age estimates derived from radio-isotope dating which suggest that, at least in this area, physics and chemistry are not consistent with Scripture either. Of course, none of these arguments require that science be abandoned, or that it is all wrong. Every true scientist concedes that honest errors are often made, and that they're eventually corrected. We can be confident that the Bible will ultimately be proven correct, as it has time and again in the field of Christian Biblical archaeology. It is no surprise that the evolutionists rely heavily on the pseudoscience of radio-isotope dating. Their entire scheme demands that the universe and the world be extravagantly old. In fact, it depends on it; it is the only physical proof they can claim to support their theoretical arguments. The irony is that even if Genesis was wrong and the universe was that old, that still doesn't mean evolution happened. Still, Darwinism leads the assault on the Scriptures, and worse, one hears about the evolution of the universe, the evolution of the Earth, even the evolution of languages.

How pathetic it is that even the study of language has been recruited in the effort to undermine the Word. It is one of the axioms of modern linguistics that all modern languages are related to a very few ancient tongues. Languages, we are told, evolve by branching off as varieties from others. This sounds suspiciously like the view of the world espoused by Darwinists. They claim that the similarities and differences between languages allow them to be grouped into families and subfamilies just like living organisms, the same old "tree of heredity" they love to trot out as an argument for evolutionary descent. Classifications can be applied to languages and living things and sometimes they are even convenient, but they are mental constructs imposed on nature and not necessarily evidence of anything except our own prejudices.

Genesis explains it all quite differently. The same chapter that lists the generations from Shem to Abraham begins "And the whole Earth was of one language and of one speech." (Genesis 11:1). This should not surprise us. Everyone on Earth was a grandchild of Adam and the world was still young. The rest of the story is familiar enough. God creates languages all at once (Genesis 11:6-7,9) as well as the nations of Man. Languages AND nations created simultaneously by God, no one-world Humanistic pan-nationalism here! Although it doesn't specifically rule out that other languages might be created later, there isn't the slightest bit of Biblical evidence that any were. It is also clear that neither the original language of Man, or the tongues created at Babel, evolved from anything. Traditionally, the events at Babel have always fully explained the origins of languages and nations, not blind chance or historical accident. It is a perfect example of Intelligent Design. In fact, the same non-Scriptural arguments which can be marshalled against evolutionary biology can be equally leveled at historical linguistics.

1) Darwinists point out that fossils exist of animals which are now extinct, and we must concede that there are also "dead" languages, like Egyptian or Babylonian. But so what? The Bible does not deny that organisms or languages can disappear. This does not prove they can change into new ones.

2) Evolutionists claim that both animals (and presumably, languages) change through time. Again, we concede that new varieties of animals can be bred and Shakespeare's English changed to modern English. But no one has ever heard of a new language being born just as no one has ever seen a new species appear. No one can show historical or documentary evidence of one language changing to another any more than they can produce a "missing link" fossil.

3) It could be argued that hybrid languages like pidgin, Spanglish, and certain ethnic dialects are examples of linguistic evolution caught in the act. Slang could be the linguistic analogue of a mutation. But the metaphor breaks down. These aberrations, like their genetic counterparts, do not breed true.

4) Darwinists believe that evolution develops more and more complex higher life forms. If languages evolve, why aren't ancient languages simpler and less sophisticated than modern ones? Perhaps there are no modern or ancient tongues. Even linguists concede that there are no simple or primitive languages. It is clear they were all created at one time.

5) If the "family tree" morphology observed in both living organisms and world languages were indeed a result of some evolutionary branching process we would expect similar languages and creatures to always be geographically associated in a similar fashion. This is not generally the case. Besides, there is no reason an intelligent Designer could not have divided languages and language families into related groupings at the time they were created. The "tree of heredity and kinship" looks much more like a deliberate artifact than an accidental arrangement.

In Spain they speak Spanish; in France they speak French. Italian is spoken in Italy. Latin is dead, spoken only by scholars and priests; does it follow that Latin fragmented into these diverse tongues? These languages have always existed, all the way back to Babel, changing over the centuries but still recognizable to their speakers. England was Roman too, but they don't speak a Romance language there. And it's not because of barbarian invasions, either; barbarians also occupied Spain, France and Italy. It is true that these languages share certain features with Latin, but it does not follow that one came from the other. The ultimate authority of Scripture reveals that the similarities of one to the others are no more significant than the similarities between Man and ape. The differences speak for themselves.