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This year the world is celebrating the birth and work of Charles Darwin, a man described as one of its greatest sons. He was born of the 12th of February exactly 200 years ago.

Darwin developed his interest in natural history while studying medicine in Edinburgh University, before studying theology at Cambridge.

Originally he was greatly influenced by Paley’s Natural Theology, which demonstrated design in creation, and he planned to become an Anglical clergyman. But alongside these studies he had developed a ken interest in natural history and especially geology.

When Robert Fitzroy, the captain of HMS Beagle, invited him to accompany him on a voyage charting the coast of South America he readily agreed. The planned two-year voyage that commenced in December 1831 extended into five, during which the young naturalist spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while the Beagle surveyed and charted coasts.

The fossil evidence and great diversity of animal life he encountered on this journey was instrumental in his development of the theory now known as Evolution by Natural Selection. On his return he commenced writing a book for which he became immediately famous: The Origin of Species by Natural Selection. This year also marks the 150th year since its publication.

The three main planks of his arguments were:

• the origin of simple life-forms from non-living material;
• the development of that original form into all known living organisms by natural selection (the “survival of the fittest”);
• the claim that this process is demonstrated in the fossil record.

Today, despite the claims by his staunch adherents, all these premises remain unproven.

Darwin was a young man when he he took his journey on HMS Beagle. Had Darwin known in his lifetime more about the infinite complexity of living things, as understood today, he would probably never have suggested that life would have originated by, to use his words, the action of sunlight on a “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts”. But although spontaneous generation of life is recognized by modern scientists as impossible to explain in scientific terms, its occurrence is still often accepted without question.

Whilst the second plank of Darwin’s theory, natural selection, may explain very minor variations in some types of living things, it certainly cannot demonstrate the major changes that would have been necessary for, say, a fish to become a mammal such as a whale.

As regards the fossil record, when fellow naturalist A.R.Wallace pointed out some weaknesses of his theory, Darwin admitted to him that “the imperfections of the geological record is, as you say, the weakest of all”. However, he was convinced that as more fossils were discovered such fossil evidence for “missing links” would emerge. But this has not been the case. As one prominent current geologist has said of them: “I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument”.

Despite all this, the overwhelming current assessment of Darwin’s work is that it provides a convincing, even unassailable, explanation of all that was once attributed to Divine wisdom and power. Despite the adulation accorded to this man, his theory remains the greatest single factor in the unbelief so evident today. The legacy of the voyage of the Beagle is seen in the godlessness and depravity of a world that, for the most part, “knows not God”.

Another man, another voyage
The Beagle was only four months into her voyage when another sea journey commenced, also with far reaching consequences.

A doctor called John Thomas, Darwin’s senior by four years, set out for America on the Marquis of Wellesley on 1st May 1832. The voyage ended in drama when the vessel was grounded off the coast of America.

Fearful that it would sink and surrounded by fellow passengers who prayed to God for their life to be spared, this young ship’s doctor resolved that if ever he got to shore he would not rest until he had found the truth concerning a future life.

He was true to his vow, and in God’s merciful providence the original Christian faith was rediscovered and has become the clear teaching of subsequent generations of Christadelphians.

Unlike the myriad followers of Charles Darwin’s false beliefs, those who adhere to that original Christian faith, unearthed by John Thomas, remain relatively few. But unlike Darwin, who gradually lost his Christian faith, those who put their trust in the Bible can see the fallacy of the Theory of Evolution.

The grand purpose of the Almighty, initiated by His creative work, is proceeding along its set course, leading to the time when “the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord shall be exalted” (Isaiah 2v11).

Someone once said: "Life is a journey - travel it well". We only have one journey through life, but we all have a choice about where that journey ends. The theory of evolution offers no hope for the future to those who believe its claims. But to believe in creation is to believe as well in a Creator and the "gift" of eternal life at the return of his son, Jesus Christ, that he offers to everyone who put their faith and trust in Him.

Your life is a journey too - why not travel it with a real hope for your future?