Encounters with Dennis Alexander by Joseph Hubbard and the Creation Research Team.
While in Australia during July to September, I (Joseph) was pointed towards a Christian magazine, Eternity, which was advertising an upcoming a series of lectures by Dr Dennis Alexander throughout Australia. I had met and experienced Alexander before, back in my home country, the UK. In March 2016, I was contacted by the Faraday Society’s Dr Patrick Richmond (who John Mackay had debated in 2014*) to make me aware that Dennis Alexander was visiting Norwich, and would I come along and participate in the Question/Answer session? Given my work with Creation Research, I decided to go along.
A Meeting with Dennis Alexander.
Who is Alexander? Amongst other things he is the Emeritus Professor of the Faraday Institute and was previously at Cambridge as Chairman of the Molecular Immunology Program. So what did he have to say in Norwich? Let’s start with his very revealing conclusion on the origin of man; “God chose a community of Neolithic farmers in the near east whom He chose to reveal Himself to in a special way – calling them into a fellowship with himself – so they might know Him as the one true personal God.” An interesting tale, but it can’t be found anywhere in the Bible, Old or New Testament.
However, it was his claims against Biblical Creationists which brought out his hidden prejudice. He began with the following statement: “The Creationists use the Bible like a science textbook. This is very dangerous and was never intended by God to be one.”
Creation Research does use the Scriptures as a reliable and revealed and accurate historical document – the way it was supposed to be used! But you can listen to all our recorded lectures or statements and find we do not use it the Bible t as a science textbook, because science is the ever-changing evolving theories of man!
Alexander went on to say that “When the Bible says ‘Let Us make man in Our own image’ it is meant to say ‘Let Us make man as Our image’” – a blatant change of the Bible. Sadly, Alexander’s talk was a typical theistic evolutionary lecture, misquoting the Bible and various Church leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, to make the claim they were supportive of an old earth. He also continually used bad science, and very bad theology, such as claiming that Genesis is a set of Theological Essays and that when the Bible talks about death, it is speaking about a spiritual death.
Alexander was asked by an audience member on the topic of the rise of “religious extremists”. My initial thought was the question was about terrorism, until Alexander mentioned Creationists, and went on to explain that these “… religious extremist creationists are destroying the popularity of science in the church …” because of its “illogicality”, and that it is most popular “… with younger people… ” because “…they are all fired up about it, but in reality, they are ignorant of what the Bible and science actually say”.
So just before I was due to ask him my question, he has publically labelled me ‘a young, ignorant, religious extremist!’ Talk about the old sceptics’ anti-creation technique– destroy the person before they even have a chance to speak.
But I persisted and did ask him about death, and the correlation between the world being “good” in the beginning, and the new heavens and earth also being “good” with no death, and how could you have one, without having the other.
His reply was that:
1. the “good” in Genesis did not mean “good” – it meant “Fit for purpose” which included death, and,
2. That when the Apostle Paul talks about death, it is talking about spiritual death, not physical death.
I personally found his answer completely unsatisfactory! The Apostle Paul’s entire argument for faith in Christ (in Romans and Corinthians) would fall apart if what Alexander said was true. Paul tells us “ If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.” (1 Corinthians 15:19-23) Its why Paul also wrote that if this death and resurrection history is not true, “You Christians are most to be pitied”.
An Article by Dennis Alexander
The above is my experience of a what was said in a meeting and is recounted by myself, but Is there anything published confirming what Alexander believes, and showing his hidden agenda? An article by Dennis Alexander entitled: Evolution, Christmas and the Atonement published in The Guardian (UK) Christmas Eve 24 December 2011, does exactly that!.
Alexander begins: “We are not descended from Adam and Eve – but still, Jesus was born to save us.” (emphasis in original) This is a clear statement that he does not believe in a literal Adam and Eve, which all mankind is descended from. Which also simply means he does not take the Bible as an accurate account of history from the creator Who is Christ. Alexander continues: “Given the fact of human evolution, here is a good question for Christmas: if we last shared a common ancestor with the chimps about 5-6 million years ago, and humans have been gradually emerging through a series of hominid intermediates ever since, then why did Jesus die?”
Good question Dennis, because it exposes the foolishness of your position. If the earth and every living thing formed through millions of years of death, and death is purely a physical and biological necessity, what good did one more man’s death actually do? Why did Jesus die to save us from the effects of death (Rev 21:1-4) if death was the very thing Christ used to create? How does Alexander deal with this?
To begin with, he quotes from Augustine of Hippo, whom he rightly states, believed in a literal Adam and Eve, and even goes on to say, if you take an Augustinian view of Genesis, evolution is completely incompatible. He’s right. But in an attempt to bridge this incompatibility, Alexander says we need to take on the view of two scholars from the Greek university of Alexandria – Philo, and Origen, who he claims did not view Adam and Eve as literal people, but as a figurative for the human race. He goes on to state: “Nowhere does the Bible teach that physical death originates with the sin of Adam, nor that sin is inherited from Adam.”
What does the Bible say?
Alexander’s statement is a flat contradiction of what the Bible says in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans. Here we are told death came into the world through the sin of one historical man, Adam, and one sinless historical man, Jesus Christ, died to pay the penalty. The Bible always treats physical and spiritual death as a moral penalty which you can only escape if the penalty is paid. Because we are all the descendants of that one first man Adam we can rejoice with Paul who tells us: “ For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17)
The main problem here is that Alexander is thinking like pagan Greeks, i.e. logically, but not necessarily truthfully. If you start with the wrong idea (human theories of evolution) you may be quite logical in your thinking, but you will reach a wrong conclusion (Christ created by millions of years of death and struggle). Think of Paul when he had to deal with the Greek academics at Athens in Acts 17. He took them back to Genesis. He explained there is a Creator, who did make everything in Heaven and Earth. We are created by Him, and are all descended from “one blood”, i.e. from Adam. (Acts 17:26) and this Creator wants us all to know Him. We are not evolutionary accidents, nor descended from a group of hominids or Neolithic farmers, by a god who couldn’t even get the story right.
Such Greek evolutionist thinking is the “false science,” as Paul calls it in 1 Tim 6:20, which will lead you away from God, but true science, true information, will lead you toward the Creator Saviour Christ who is ”the Way, the TRUTH, the Life”( John 14:6).
Alexander’s final comment in the Guardian article says it all: “Evolution’s gift is a complex brain that endows humanity with free will, enabling personal moral responsibilities towards our neighbour and towards God. We are not puppets. God’s gift at Christmas is forgiveness and new life through Christ for those who realise how far we’ve fallen from using that free will responsibly.” (emphasis added) This comment elevates evolution to the status of a god, and nothing could insult Jesus Christ more than this.
Conclusion
We urge those in Australia to take this visit as an opportunity to challenge Alexander. Expose the fallacies in his prestigious theories and warn the churches who claim Alexander is honouring Christ with his high repute science, when in reality he is merely the latest and highest profile Judas, betraying Jesus to all.
Useful Resources
Additional helpful information from Prof Andy Macintosh who writes: “Alexander wrote the book “Creation or Evolution – do we have to choose”; so a number of us in the UK wrote a response in the book “Should Christians Embrace Evolution” – see https://www.prpbooks.com/book/should-christians-embrace-evolution
ALSO see Creation Research’s “Ten Questions for Theistic Evolutionists” (here), and use them in public meetings against him. He claims to hold a literal and accurate view of Genesis, but in reality, he misuses scripture, and undermines the authority of God.
Dennis Alexander’s article in The Guardian
*Debate with Patrick Richmond Should Christians Reject Evolution is available on DVD and MP 4 from Creation research webshop.
Also, see the debate between John Mackay and John Polkinghorne: The Big Question: Is Evolution compatible with the Christian Faith? Filmed in Liverpool cathedral. Available from Creation Research webshop as DVD or MP4 Download. Watch free on YouTube here.
This article is available in PDF format if you would like to print and distribute it free of charge, but the copyright remains with Creation Research. Download PDF here.
Creation Research Prayer News
19 September 2018
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