Doctrine of Man

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the fact that man is still searching for answers to the fundamental questions concerning the why and how of his existence, the purpose of the journey of life, and the ultimate destiny. Different theories have been put forward in explaining the origin of man, ranging from creationism to evolution. The paper examines these theories. The evolutionary theory of creation attributes all this diversification and the countless species of living beings to the process of systematic natural evolution. The Christian faith offers a different explanation in the form of the Genesis account of creation. Even within the creationism theory, there are mildly different views of the creation process. The paper presents a brief discussion of these differing perspectives of creation in order to shed more light on that one primeval question, which has continued to intrigue all of mankind from time immemorial.

From the Paper:

"The theory of evolution is in total contrast to the creation theory. God is totally excluded from the whole picture and it explains that everything from the living to the inert matter originated naturally from gradual changes over millions of years. In other words there is an outright exclusion of the metaphysical or the supernatural realms of existence and everything is described in terms of natural evolution and as a pure chance factor. So man is not a special being but only a natural evolution product from the primitive beings. The one drawback however in this evolutionary theory of existence is that it does not offer explanation as to how the original material which is supposed to have undergone all this transmutation, transformation and gradual evolution came into existence. That is to say that the evolution theory may explain that the tree came from the seed and the bird came from the egg but has no clue for the existence of the seed or the egg. Something is assumed to be in existence before everything else and in this aspect this theory is found wanting in a basic aspect."

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