Definition:
Law of Cause and Effect (sometimes known as the Law of Causality) – for every effect there must be an antecedent cause. Note that there are two types of causes: 1) Event cause like rain causes the grass to be wet. 2) Agent cause like Dad watered the grass to cause it to be wet.
Evolution’s Position:
Astronomers and cosmic evolutionists believe that our universe began with an explosion of space itself. This was the Big Bang that started from extremely high density and temperature. From that space expanded, the universe cooled, and simple elements formed.
Given:
All scientific laws and theories must be compatible. Two scientific laws or theories that are incompatible means that one or both are wrong.
These are the different types of causes: 1) material cause (block of stone), 2) instrumental cause (tool), 3) formal cause (idea of an artist or blueprint), 4) final cause (sell), and 5) efficient or primary cause (artist).
Question:
Does the Theory of Evolution conflict with the Law of Cause and Effect? Can the Theory of Evolution be a theory? This question between material scientist and creationist boils down to one question of causation. Was the universe created by 1) an event or 2) an agent? And which of these can best explain the cause with sufficient reason, power, and adequacy?
Discussion:
We note that when event “B” follow event “A”, we naturally wonder if event “A” caused event “B” because we are human. An example of this is the event of rain (“A”) followed by the event (“B”) of wet grass. If we observe this with our senses each time and understand the reasons “wet grass” follows “rain” then we make the conclusion that “wet grass” is the effect of “rain”. Or that “A- rain” caused “B- wet grass”.
I love playing pool. My mental intention moves my arm that moves a stick that moves a white ball that moves colored balls from an organized triangular grouping to dispersed locations of pockets by way of physical collisions. Pool combines cause and effect with newton’s laws of motion.
How is pool related to Is Evolution A Theory you may ask?
Have you seen a pool game on television? Imagine you turned on the TV just in time to see a pool game. You see the break but the TV camera did not show the cue ball get hit. Would you say that nothing hit the cue ball? The cue ball just jumped into motion?
It is one thing to say that “nothing” caused the cue ball to move into motion; it happened by chance. It is another thing to say that there are forces moving that I cannot or did not see.
Another example of the law of causality is domino chain reaction. In 2024 Henesh5 fell 900,000 dominos with the touch of only one. This one was the cause. The effect was the falling of the dominos. (Watch the fall here.)
Do you see the difference between “I don’t know” and “nothing” caused it? “I don’t know” claims a lack of knowledge. “Nothing caused it” claims total knowledge.
From the Law of Causality we know that an effect has a cause. (Can an effect be its own cause? No!) This is true in every effect that we know. The question between causes and effects revolve around our sense perception and our reasoning. We must admit that our senses do not have perfect perception of reality. We have machines like microscopes and telescopes to heighten our senses. Even so, we cannot sense all of the unseen forces in action.
Conflict:
The theory of evolution is false because it is irrational with its claim that “chance” or “singularity” or ” time” or what ever you think caused the big bang. How can the effect, the universe, caused itself? There was a “first cause” that made the universe explode into existence. What was the first cause? It was not a mathematical probability called chance. And could not have been singularity as that is a condensed form of the effect. What caused matter to appear out of nothing? What caused the matter that appeared out of nothing to explode or expand into the Big Bang?
Do you see the conflict between the Law of Cause (Law of Causality) and Effect and the Theory of Evolution? We see the universe around us (effect), but what was the material cause?
[Note that I have not asked the question about biological evolution – like what caused DNA information to be created or what causes species to become more and more complex? See the Law of Information and the Law of Biogenetics.]
Conclusion:
The bottom line to the question Is Evolution A Theory is: NO. The theory of evolution is incompatible with the Law of Cause and Effect.