My Walk With God
From Doubt To Understanding
Testimony by Brooks A. Harris, O.D.
Deceptive Beginnings
The following is an account of my spiritual journey. I grew up learning Christian values and morals at home and at church but I do not remember anyone talking to me about God or Jesus, outside of church, except for occasional discussions with my mother. Although I enjoyed some youth activities and Bible lessons at our church, going to church never really seemed that important to me, or to my friends outside of church, or to other important adults in my life. I do not remember religion being discussed that much, so I really questioned the importance of God as I got to be a teenager and young adult.
Also my scientific way of thinking made me doubt the existence of God. It was a stumbling block to my faith. If life just happened and organisms evolved by pure accidental chance natural processes, is God even necessary? The Bible seemed to be an interesting book of symbolic stories and a good guidebook on how to live a good moral life, but the teachings in Genesis were inconsistent with what I was taught in school so therefore I doubted its accuracy. If the Bible is supposed to be the Word of God, but it is not true in its history, then how accurate is the rest of the Bible and does God really exist?
I would catch myself praying occasionally but I did not really know if God heard me or if God really even existed. I considered myself an agnostic (someone who does not know what to believe). As a young adult, when problems arose, I remember thinking that I was going to handle them on my own; I could figure out the cause of the problem and fix it myself. I did not want to use God as an excuse. I did not want to have to admit that I could not handle my own problems or that I had to ask God for help. Unfortunately some problems were reoccurring every few to several months no matter what I tried.
One day an elderly lady asked me "Dr. Harris, are you a Christian?" and I answered with a pause and hesitant "Uhhhh ... yes". I knew I had a problem when I had to think what to say. In Mark 8:38 it says "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words ... of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed...". I felt uncomfortable telling others that I was a Christian. I had gone to church most of my life, gone through the church rituals of baptism and confirmation and I believed in Christian teachings about values and morals but eventually I realized that I did not totally accept God. I realized that I probably was not really "saved". If God was real, I wanted to believe but I could not logically accept God. I also began to worry that if I am not really saved then what will happen to me if I were to die? Are heaven and hell real places or not? Finally I prayed something like this to God "If you are real God, please show me the truth." I knew that if He was real then only He could help me with my unbelief. I needed some answers regarding the reality of God, Jesus, heaven and hell. I needed convincing evidence to satisfy my questions and eliminate my doubts.
Since evolution and creation were taught as separate ideas with neither comparing their ideas with the other, I basically learned that evolution was true science and history, but creation was just a symbolic religious belief. Due to my extensive scientific educational background, with strong evolutionary influences, I had always had difficulty fully accepting creation beliefs and felt I needed scientific evidence to support Biblical accounts especially in Genesis. I was never really shown any good explanations or comparisons between the two theories. Also noone could give me logical reasons to believe in God. The church taught me that I was to just have faith and believe in God, the Bible and creation by faith alone. I do not remember anyone ever going into any detail to make the theory of creation understandable or believable. So I learned to believe that evolution was fact, as it was presented to me, and that creation somehow tied into evolution, but I had found it to be very difficult to get both creation and evolution to make since together. My church taught a view called "Theistic Evolution" which believes that God created the basic elements of earth and used these elements to slowly create all organisms through the process of evolution. This was a compromised view which distorted the Biblical creation account.
Creation’s account of six literal days and the order that things were created, differed greatly from evolution’s millions and billions of years and the order that things evolved. Also one thing I could never figure out was that if both evolution and creation theories are true, then at what point in evolution, between ape and man, did God create man as is described in the Bible (from the dust of the ground and in God’s own image)? These problems are what ultimately started me on my quest for logical, understandable answers. I needed a reasonable comparison between the two theories.
A New View Is Presented
Before long some things started to fall into place but not how I would have expected. In 1999 while my son was attending a private Christian school, he and my wife informed me of some scientific views he was being exposed to. They differed greatly from what I was taught in my education. Ever since I was very young, I have been taught the two theories of origins. In church I learned the stories of creation and in schools, in museums, on TV, and in magazines and books I learned the theory of evolution. You see, as I grew up I learned to love science and nature, and now I am a very scientifically minded person. I took several science courses in high school and college and even graduated from college with a Biology major and Chemistry minor. So I was well versed in our supposed origins and ancient natural history. These views that my son was being taught pertained to dinosaurs, the age of the earth and the origins of natural things. Although I was raised in church and learned the stories of creation, I was taught extensively in school and by my society that the theories of evolution were true happenings. Since the creation stories in the Bible differed so greatly from the evolutionary views I was taught, I did not believe that the creation account was true history but rather just symbolic stories of how God would have treated mankind’s sin. So when I heard that my son was being exposed to different beliefs and being told that things I believed were wrong, I was not happy.
A few days later I met with his school administrator who calmly explained part of his view and that he had scientific evidence to support his view. He then directed me to a man who had several resources on such subjects. I got some "Creation Science" literature and read it. I was very evolutionary minded at the beginning of my research and very skeptical of such views as the six literal days of creation as recorded in Genesis. I expected my research to reinforce my evolutionary views. I was determined to read this literature and prove to myself and others that what I had been taught over the past several years about evolution was correct and that their views about creation were incorrect. But for the first time in my life I was reading very good scientific explanations of the origins of life, origins of plant and animal kinds, origins of mankind, origins of our universe and origins of our geologic system around the world. For the first time in my life I had access to books, audio cassettes, CD’s, DVD’s, video cassettes, magazines, individual articles, pamphlets and web sites which compared creation beliefs to my beliefs in evolution (I now have an extensive library of such resources). I quickly realized that modern scientific data strongly supported the stories of creation just as found in the Bible and strongly discredited the theories of Darwinian evolution.
Over a five year period of research, I came to some very different conclusions than I was taught in twenty years of school. I discovered through my research that only one theory can work at a time, not both together, and only one of these beliefs even makes sense. I discovered that Genesis is literal history. What I have learned has greatly increased my appreciation and understanding of science, history and the Bible. I learned that it is not science that contradicts the Bible; it is the way we interpret the scientific evidence which causes problems.
This was no brainwashing of religious material, it was scientific material which made perfect logical sense. I finally realized that I had been brainwashed for decades by only being shown manipulated information that supposedly supported evolution. If you are only shown one viewpoint of anything all your life, it will seem right and you will not see any need to question it unless someone gives an opposing view. Proverbs 18:17 even says "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." If all the information had been shown and both evolution and creation ideas had been presented together I would have made much better informed decisions. But since a creator implies a god and a god implies religion, many educators chose to not present a creator as a possible cause for nature in fear of violating some bogus "separation of church and state" law. It is poor science not to present all the known evidences and let people decide for themselves what to believe. This practice of selective information and manipulated evidence, has led to an indoctrination of generations of children around the world in evolutionary beliefs and led to my disbelief in God with eternal consequences if I had not discovered the truth. It makes you wonder how many other people are in the same boat of disbelief as I was because of this practice.
My studies proved to me that the Bible is very reliable in every way including science and history. The beginning of everything in nature, our origins, and our early history, is accurately recorded in the Bible. I discovered that our modern scientific evidences strongly support creation but create many problems for the theories of Darwinian evolution.
Testing and Teaching All Things
Although our society and public schools continue to support evolution, today’s technology has disproved nearly all evolutionary beliefs. The atheists, agnostics and humanists in our educational institutions have been very successful in convincing people that the creation view is just religious while the evolution view is scientific, but nothing could be further from the truth. Since neither view can be "proven" scientifically, both views are ultimately religious views requiring faith to believe in them. Interestingly though, the creation view has far more demonstratable evidence. If both creation and evolution views were taught in schools, millions of students would favor the view of special creation after seeing the overwhelming evidence which supports it.
Our generation, unlike all preceding ones, has been given the evidence which proves the Biblical account to be accurate beyond any reasonable doubt. God forbid that we should remain ignorant of this information when so much truth could help so many. Far too many of God’s people believe the Bible by faith alone and do not realize that science shows how the events in Genesis make perfect logical sense by actually supporting the Biblical account of creation, the universal catastrophe of Noah’s flood, and the scattering of people groups at Babel. Man’s opinions and ideas about the ancient past constantly change, but the truths in the Bible never change.
A good scientist will always look at all the available evidence before making final conclusions. The Bible even tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 that we should "test all things." I have read many accounts of educated people who have set out to research history, science, prophecy, and/or other religions to prove the Bible to be wrong, only to find that the Bible is very reliable. Their new-found knowledge even led many of them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. So remember this, it is not only ignorant, but also wrong to say that a view is wrong and you do not believe in that view if you have not studied and do not understand the view that you say you do not believe. Many people who believe in Darwinian evolution say that they do not believe in the theories of creation, but they have never really seen how the modern scientific evidences drastically support the accounts of creation and no longer support the theories of Darwinian evolution.
The purpose of ‘Creation Science Ministries" is to not only show how modern scientific evidence strongly supports God’s Word, namely in Genesis, but also to restore the authority of God by showing how accurate and reliable the Bible is from the very beginning. I have seen an overwhelming amount of evidence, which has been thoroughly researched and published, for God’s existence, for the reliability of the Bible, and for science and history recorded in the Bible. (Over the years I have collected several of these and now have many available as free handouts. Many of them are also on my blog site.) These resources are what proved to me, beyond any reasonable doubt, that God does exist and has always existed, that He is the marvelous Creator of the universe, that He created the heavens, earth, all plant and animal kinds, and man as recorded in the Holy Bible. This made me realize that the Bible can be trusted from the very beginning and that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are real, and the gospel is true.
Now instead of telling you what harms have been caused by the teaching and practicing of evolutionary beliefs, I am going to tell you what studying the scientific and historical evidences for creation and the Bible has done for me. Once I realized how well modern scientific evidences supported the creation story in the Bible, I began studying other areas to test the accuracy and reliability of the entire Bible. I found that there are several other scientific facts written in Scripture which were not understood until scientific findings of the past few centuries revealed their truth. I also studied archaeological findings and found that many have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible, as specific people, places and events. I also discovered that there are several non-Christian historians from the first few centuries A.D. which confirmed the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus Christ. Then I researched prophesies in the Bible and found that no other book in history has ever recorded so many prophesies which were fulfilled in great detail often hundreds of years after the prophesies were made. Also Biblical manuscripts have been extremely well preserved compared to any other ancient works.
Jesus said in John 3:12, "If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things." So once I realized I could strongly believe what the Bible has said about science, nature and the origins of earthly things, I began to trust and believe what it said about spiritual and heavenly things. As a young adult I would see how much joy and love older people had for God and I wondered "If God is real, why should I wait until I get old to enjoy such joy and love?" This led me to begin researching questions on spiritual beliefs such as: What is the meaning of life?, Why is man here?, Why did Jesus come to earth?, What will heaven or hell be like?, Why does God allow suffering?, What does God expect from us?, What does God promise His followers?, What does it really mean to be a Christian? Over the past few years I have researched these questions and many more and found satisfying answers to them.
My studies have made such an impact on my understanding of science and history and my spiritual life that I feel I have a calling to share what I have learned to anyone willing to listen. I want others to have the opportunity to strengthen their faith by discovering what I have learned. If they do not have a solid foundation in their beliefs, they will be more likely to question their beliefs when conflicts arise and give into false teachings and/or begin compromising God’s word. My biggest concern is that there are many people who are as confused and as lost as I was. They have doubts or disbelief in God and the Bible due to their understanding of science and history as taught by our schools and society. Since societies around the world have taught for decades that science essentially disproves the stories in the first eleven chapters in Genesis, as man’s origins, Noah’s flood, and Babel, I feel that it is very important to teach what I, and thousands of others, believe to be the truth. Just preaching the gospel of Jesus is no longer effective to a rapidly growing number of people who no longer trust the accuracy of the Bible nor believe in God. I want to help ministers and missionaries restore the authority of God by showing people that science, history, archaeology, fulfilled prophecy, manuscript preservation and other evidences drastically support His Word.
In an effort to share what I have learned, God has led me to give lectures (even a power point presentation on scientific evidence for creation vs evolution) and write many articles which I give out to anyone interested. Many of these articles are now posted on my blog site. Visit my blog site - http://biblicalreliability.blogspot.com and read the articles "Evidence for Biblical Reliability," "Man’s Early History" and "Creative Views of Science" for much more information on the reliability of the Bible, and "My World View" and "Common Christian Beliefs" for what I now believe and understand, and "My Walk With God - Continued" for my testimony continued.
If you would like to see some of the information that has brought me to believe what I now believe, contact me for free handouts or visit such web sites as www.answersingenesis.org (look under "Get Answers"), http://www.basictruth.net/, http://www.lwf.org/, http://www.gnmagazine.org/, http://www.bibleuniverse.com/, http://www.searchforthetruth.org/, http://www.creationism.org/, http://www.evolution-facts.org/, http://www.christiananswers.net/ and http://www.apologeticspress.org/.
