- Series:History, Transcript English
2 John 1:7
“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”
Most people consider Charles Darwin to be the father of evolution. The fact is, someone beat him to it by six hundred years. In the thirteenth century, a Muslim scholar by the name of Nasir al-Din Tusi proposed a theory of evolution that in many ways foreshadowed Darwin’s.
Tusi’s theory begins with a universe consisting of equal and similar elements. Those elements evolved into minerals and then to plants. From there they evolved to animals, and then to humans. He even put forward the idea that hereditary variability was an important factor for the biological evolution of living things.
This Persian scholar was born in the city of Tus in northeastern Iran in the year 1201. In addition to his work in biology, Tusi was an architect, astronomer, chemist, mathematician, poet, philosopher, physician, physicist and theologian. In all, he is responsible for 150 works, most of which are in Arabic.
Regarding evolution, he considered humans to be the “middle step of the evolutionary stairway.” The final step, he wrote, can be achieved through man’s will. Tusi was also the first to suggest that not only do organisms change over time but that the whole range of life has evolved from a point when there was no life at all. In other words, life from non-life.
There is one other point of similarity between Tusi’s and Darwin’s theories of evolution. Both theories are based on the faulty reasoning of man rather than the sure Word of God.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray that You will help people come to a knowledge of the truth that’s found in the pages of the Bible. Amen.
Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Ref: D. Green, The Science Book, p. 121 (DK Publishing, 2014). Photo: A stamp issued in the republic of Azerbaijan in 2009 honoring Tusi.
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