One of the challenges to the Truth in these last days, is the increasing acceptance and promulgation of the theory of Evolution. Earlier brethren spoke about this doctrine as presented in their day, and refuted it as being against Scripture teaching. So Robert Roberts wrote
“The theory of evolution is an attempt to construct a universe without a Creator. It leaves no room for the fall of man, no room for sin, and consequently no room for redemption. If man came from the beast by slow degrees, at what point did he become responsible to divine law? The Bible answers this not with a process of millions of years, but with a direct commanding voice: ‘God created man in his own image.'”
The Christadelphian, Volume 18
And again, CC Walker:
“If evolution is correct the Bible does not give accurate description concerning the origin of man, even in metaphoric form, and therefore cannot be the Word of God and should be rejected. Conversely, if the Bible is true, then man most certainly did not evolve, and speculation that he did can be rejected with equal confidence.”
The Christadelphian Volume 61
So much for atheistic Evolution, but one of the problems of our day are those who seek to combine Evolution with the Bible. So-called Theistic Evolution does not deny an all powerful Creator, but it does deny how that Creator Himself describes what He did to Create the Earth, and man upon it. In this special issue, we shall examine the claims of Evolution – both Atheistic and Theistic, and demonstrate how for the Bible Believer, there is no amity between Creation and Evolution: they are mutually exclusive. Wisdom dictates that the correct approach is to accept the Creator at His Own Word, and reject the theories of man.
SCIENCE AND FAITH
Very often, Science and Faith are seen as contradictory principles. Take, for example, the words of the prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, during a speech at the Edinburgh Internation Science Festival, on April 15th, 1992:
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”
According to this approach, faith only comes into play when there is no evidence for a given proposal. However, this is not Bible faith. The teaching of the Bible is different to this:
“Prove all things: hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world” (1 John 4:1).
According to the Bible then, we must not blindly accept something that appeals to us as being true. We must examine every spirit, or teaching, and “test” them, in an endeavour to “prove all things”. Bible faith is not belief in the unprovable therefore – it is a belief based upon subjecting a particular claim to testing in order to determine its veracity.
A DEFINITION OF SCIENCE
According to the Oxford Languages website, a definition of science is:
“The systemic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained”
This seems to be a fair definition as to what Science actually is. But notice there are 3 elements:
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- Observation
- Experimentation
- Testing the theories against evidence
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We shall return to these later, but what we shall see, is that evolutionary theory falls down in each of these areas. This can be seen by considering:
SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?
According to the well-known theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, the universe came out of nothing – indeed, this is a common feature of Big Bang theorists:
“Because there is such a law as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going”
(The Grand Design (2010))
Again, the theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, in his work “A Universe from Nothing” states:
“Nothing can create something all the time due to the laws of quantum mechanics”
And the cosmologist Alan Guth states in “The ‘Free Lunch’ Theory”:
“It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch. … it is rather fantastic to realise that the laws of physics can describe how everything was created in a random quantum fluctuation out of nothing …”
Finally, the physicist Arno Penzias (who is known for his accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is regarded as evidence for the Big Bang theory), in “Cosmos, Bios and Theos” states:
“Astronomy leads us to a unique event – a universe which was created out of nothing”
We saw above how that Science is “the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation …”. However, despite these confident claims, it is a fact that such a thing has never been observed! Something out of nothing has never been seen by scientists, or anyone else – it is a truth claim that cannot be proven by scientific methodology.
This is important: Evolutionists deny God as Creator, yet replace Him with … “nothing!” They say that God does not exist – but that with which they replace Him literally does not exist – their “nothing” has non-existence as it’s defining feature!
So it is that Big Bang theorists cannot validate their claim through science. The concept that nothing exploded into everything cannot be observed, examined in a laboratory, or be reproduced. Everything that can be observed indicates that all things which begin to exist have a cause, and to claim that cause to be “nothing” is not either scientific, or Bible teaching.
The Bible does not teach that everything came from nothing, despite what some churches say. Rather, it teaches a Creator who produced all things by His Own Underived Power:
“… but to us there is but one God, the Father, out of whom are all things (Greek), and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
This is in harmony with all of the observable facts of the case – all that begins to exist in creation has a cause, and the ultimate Cause is defined in the Bible to be an intelligent, all wise Creator, Who is infinite in power.
A GRAIN OF SAND
But other physicists teach that all things came into existence from the explosion of a very tiny singularity. So the Institute of Physics (the professional body and learned society for physics in the UK and Ireland) states on their website:
“Most physicists believe the universe was born in a big bang 13.8 billion years ago. In it the energy making up everything in the cosmos we see today was squeezed inside an inconceivably small space – far tinier than a grain of sand, or even an atom. Then, this unimaginably hot and dense cauldron – for whatever reason – ballooned at a terrifying rate.”
Others use the comparison of a full-stop, how everything originated from something smaller than the full-stop at the end of this sentence. But again, this cannot be observed, or replicated – it has to be assumed, not proved. Evolutionists sometimes ridicule us for saying that so many animals had to fit inside the Ark made by Noah – yet they themselves teach that all things that exist fitted into something as tiny as a grain of sand! This is indeed a leap of faith, and is not scientific or Scriptural!
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE
The evolutionist G A Kerkut, in his work “Implications of Evolution” lists a number of “assumptions” inherent in the theory. He writes:
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- “The first assumption is that non-living things gave rise to living material, ie. spontaneous generation occurred”
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As we have seen, this is something that cannot be “observed” either in a laboratory, or in the world around us – as Kerkut has it, it has to be assumed. Neither can it be reproduced: all available experience informs us that life does not emerge from non-life. Indeed, this is also Bible teaching: all things are Created by a Living God, and life is maintained by His Spirit:
“and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).
“… Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return unto their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth” (Psa. 104:29-30).
Whilst Evolutionists sometimes scorn the Creationist reliance upon an All-Powerful God, and the performance of miracles, it should be acknowledged that their position also depends upon miracles. Some of them are as follows:
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- Something came from nothing: nothing exploded and became everything
- Order emerged from Chaos: a random explosion brought about order
- Abiogenesis – matter created life by itself (non-living matter becoming alive)
- Information comes from matter: where did DNA come from?
- Consciousness from chemistry – thoughts and awareness arises from chemical processes.
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None of these things can be tested from observable evidence, or reproduced in a laboratory. They are essentially all miracles, which do not occur in the observable universe.
THEISTIC EVOLUTION
Sometimes nominal Christians seek a compromised position – they argue that Evolution is the means by which God created life on earth, as opposed to the Creator’s own account in the book of Genesis. Indeed, the Catholic Church holds this position:
“… evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of Creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve …”
(Pope Francis, during an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican, October 27th, 2014).
Again:
“Today … new knowledge leads us to recognize the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge”
(Pope John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 22nd October 1996)
The question sometimes raised, is “Why does it matter?” In short, there are at least 2 important reasons:
- It contradicts the Creator’s own account of what He did
- It denies certain fundamental doctrines of Scripture.
We shall consider these points shortly!
Although there are differences between professors of Theistic Evolution, some of their claims in attempting to marry the Creation record with their theory are similar:
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- Adam was taken from an already existent race of men
- Adam was “called” from the dusty regions of Mesopotamia
- The Genesis account is metaphorical, and not meant to be taken literally
- It was written to simple people who could not have understood the complexities of evolutionary theory
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We have already considered how that Evolution and the Big Bang theory are belief systems in themselves, requiring miracles for life to exist – and that they cannot be observed or proved by scientific methodology. But what about these claims about the Bible: that it’s record was written for simple people, and is figurative – i.e. metaphor, and not literal? The question that must be asked, is “if the Genesis account is a metaphor to convey Creation in simple terms, because Evolution was too complicated, what do each one of the metaphors refer to?”
It is claimed that the formation of Adam out of the dust of the ground, is a metaphor for him being called out of the dusty regions of Mesopotamia. But if the record is metaphorical, what do the other details represent? Why describe Eve as being formed from Adam’s rib? What is the Garden of Eden a metaphor for? What are the animals and trees representative of? If the narrative was designed to convey spiritual truths to simple people, it should be easy for the wise men of this world to understand the significance of each of the simple symbols used – yet they do not: evidently, they are not as wise as the “simple” people of old!
If the intent was to express things in simple terms, as one writer puts it:
“God could have simply said: “and God created life in the oceans, too small to see, and over long periods of time, they grew larger and more complex, and changed until they eventually developed into plants, then animals, then men and women … and it was good””
This would certainly have been easier to understand than an elaborate metaphor, which is still not understood by the intellectuals of this world today!
EXEGESIS VERSUS EISEGESIS
As an aside, it should be pointed out that this accommodation of evolutionary theory by believers in God is based upon a flawed approach to the Bible. There are essentially two approaches to the text of Scripture: Exegesis and Eisegesis.
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- Exegesis is from the Greek: exēgeisthai, which literally means “to lead out”. It is the core goal of the practice to “draw out” the meaning from the text itself rather than imposing one’s own ideas onto it.
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- Eisegesis is from the Greek eisēgeisthai, meaning “to lead in.” It involves “reading into” the words to make them support a specific agenda or personal belief.
The preferred method is Exegesis, as it allows the Bible to explain itself. Because Eisegesis reads into the text a meaning which the original Author did not convey, it can be used to support just about any belief system the reader might hold. Certainly, this is the case with those who seek to import Evolutionary theory – and the Big Bang theory – into the Bible text. To make the Genesis account accommodate Evolution by reading into it a particular view is not a good approach to understanding the Bible.
CLAIMS OF THE BIBLE
Although the Bible is not a scientific textbook, it is just not true to say that the Bible does not describe how man was created – it plainly states:
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).
And this is endorsed to be a literal account, by the Lord Jesus Christ himself (Mrk. 10:6). Granted, this description is not couched in scientific language, but it does describe how God formed man. Moreover, the record specifically denies the claim that animals changed over time into different species:
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good”
(Genesis 1:24-25)
This is something that is observable: animals in nature do not change from one “kind” to another. They were originally created after their own “kind” and can only reproduce into further specimens of that “kind”. There is no known case, whether in a laboratory, or in the real world, where it has been observed for a particular species of animal to change into another species. The Bible is in harmony with observable evidence, whereas Evolution is not!
The New Testament writers also regarded the Genesis account as being literal. Consider the following:
- “The first Adam was made a living soul” (1Cor. 15:45)
- “The first man is of the earth, earthy” (1 Cor. 15:47)
- “Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression” (Rom. 5:14).
- “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim. 2:13-14)
- “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam prophesied …” (Jude 14).
Each of these verses present the Creation account as being a literal reality. But there are doctrines fundamental to the Gospel, which also require a literal reading: these we address as follows:
DOCTRINAL CONSEQUENCES
There are various doctrines in the Old and New Testaments which depend upon a literal understanding of Creation. We shall examine three such examples:
- The Origin of Sin and Death
- The Atonement
- Man being made in the Image of God
The Origin of Sin and Death:
The Bible is very clear that death came into the world as a direct consequence of sin – and that sin came into being through the first human pair:
“… by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
“the body is dead because of sin” (Rom. 8:10).
The question arises therefore, if Adam was not the first man, then where do sin and death originate? Biblical exegesis reveals that Adam and Eve transgressed a particular Divine Law, and as a consequence became mortal, dying creatures. And that because all men are literally descended from the first human pair, they also inherit a mortal, dying nature. To suggest otherwise is to read into the text a meaning that is not inherently there – eisogesis!
This is an important doctrine – we grow old and die because we inherit a mortal nature:
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Rom. 6:12)
“He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11)
“We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’s sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11)
This a feature which Evolution cannot explain – whether it be Theistic or Atheistic.
The Atonement:
The Bible’s teaching on a related topic is also clear. The Atonement is also dependent upon a literal reading of Genesis:
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:18, ESV)
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22)
“as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:49).
The point is, that men and women are naturally “in Adam”, and can be justified through faith by transferring to become “in Christ” through the appointed way. But this can only be so, if there were a “first Adam” to begin with!
Made in the Image of God:
The Bible is clear that mankind was made in the Image of God:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27)
“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him” (Genesis 5:1)
But if there were no original “male and female”, then there is a problem – which underdeveloped life-form was in the Divine Image? It might be argued that it is the final, human form which is in God’s Image, and all the previous lives led up to it. But that would contradict the teaching that in the beginning men and women were originally created in His Image, not some other image, leading up to an eventual Divine Likeness!
It is well recognised by some Theistic Evolutionists that their theory does contradict the Bible. Consider the following from the biblical scholar and evolutionist Peter Enns:
“By saying that Paul’s Adam is not the historical first man, we are leaving behind Paul’s understanding of the cause of the universal plight of sin and death. But this is the burden of anyone who wishes to bring evolution and Christianity together – the only question is how that will be done … So, although my suggestion here leaves behind the truly historical Adam of Paul’s thinking, so do any other attempts – except those of biblical literalists, who reject the evolutionary account of human origins.”
(The Evolution of Adam, p. 123, Peter Enns)
Here is a plain recognition that Evolution departs from and “leaves behind” the “truly historical Adam of Paul’s thinking” – and those who do otherwise are labelled “biblical literalists”!
Atheistic evolutionists are clear that their belief system must exclude God, even if the Theists aren’t. Hence the evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin wrote:
“We take the side of science [naturalistic] in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated ‘just so’ stories, because we have an a priori commitment to materialism … and … materialism is an absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”
Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” 1997
An important reason to believe Evolution therefore, despite it’s “patent absurdity” is because “we cannot allow a divine foot in the door”. In short, Evolution must be believed and promoted, because the alternative is a personal Creator – and that must not be allowed at any cost!
It is clear from the foregoing, that Evolution is a belief system, which remains unproven. Richard Dawkins recognises this. When asked on the www.edge.org website “What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?”, he responded:
“I believe, but cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all design anywhere in the universe is the direct product of Darwinian natural selection”
This is interesting! This is the same man who we cited earlier as saying:
“… faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”.
How does this apply to his own position? It might be argued that he is referring to evidence, not proof – but that would concede that proof is not needed to validly hold a particular position. There is evidence that there is a Creator – which Dawkins does not take account of in his words
THE GOD OF THE GAPS
There is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad ignorantiam, which is an argument from ignorance. This is “an informal logical fallacy that occurs when someone claims something is true just because it hasn’t been proven false—or false because it hasn’t been proven true.” In relation to “the God of the Gaps” argument, the following applies:
- The Premise:“We do not currently know how Phenomenon X happens through natural causes”.
- The Fallacious Conclusion:“Therefore, Phenomenon X must have been caused by God”.
- The Flaw:Just as an appeal to ignorance falsely assumes that “unproven” means “false,” God of the gaps falsely assumes that “unexplained” must mean “supernatural”. It fails to account for the possibility that a natural explanation exists but has not been discovered yet.
Richard Dawkins also speak of this strategy:
“The God of the Gaps’ strategy… What worries thoughtful theologians… is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide”.
(Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion” 2006)
The claim is, that because a certain thing cannot be explained naturally, that therefore it must be God. Hence the phrase “God of the Gaps” – the existence of God is invoked where there is a gap in scientific knowledge, and as scientific knowledge increases, so the opportunity for belief in God diminishes. Stephen Hawkin famously claimed:
“However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by everyone… we should know the mind of God.” (A Brief History of Time, 1988)
His conception is that as scientific knowledge increases, men will eventually “know the mind of God”!
Yet the objection is a valid one, and it is disappointing, and concerning to see Creationists use this fallacy. For the Bible believer, this is a caricature of their position – a “straw man”. The reason why we believe in a Creator-God is not because science cannot explain a particular thing. Our faith is not in what Science has yet to explain – we also regard God as being present and active in things which Science can and does explain.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “God is not a Stopgap”: He wrote that it is wrong to use God as a “stopgap for the incompleteness of our knowledge”. Again, he famously stated that “We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved”
GOD OF THE GAPS – TIME!
But Evolutionists also have their own argumentum ad ignorantiam theory – time! To turn a frog into a prince is a fairy tale – but implant a long period of time into the mix, and it becomes true! Hence the American Scientist George Wald wrote:
“Time is in fact the hero of the plot… Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.”
George Wald (article “The Origin of Life,” published in the August 1954 issue of Scientific American.)
There is no evidence that animals can change their “kind” as we saw earlier, and there is likewise no evidence that the impossible becomes true by time being inserted into a logical gap of evidence. And as Wald concedes in this article, the evolutionist must depend on “miracles” performed by Time!
We cited a definition of Science earlier:
“the systemic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained” (Oxford Languages).
We saw that there are three main points:
- Observation
- Experimentation
- Testing against evidence
But how do the Big Bang and Evolution theories stand up to scrutiny using the scientific method?
- Something emerging from nothing cannot be observed. Neither can life be observed coming from non-life. Neither can species changing into other species.
- Evolution and the origin of life cannot be demonstrated through experimentation.
- All the evidence leads to one logical conclusion – a Creator!
It is clear that the theories (not facts) under discussion are not themselves scientific. They are belief systems, which require faith to accept them. It is wrong therefore, to present this issue as being Science against Faith.
There is another important point. Whereas Evolutionists present Creation as being not scientific, some of the founding fathers of modern science were Creationists. Consider the following:
- Kepler – Astronomy
- Pascal – Hydrostatics
- Boyle – Chemistry
- Newton – Physics
- Steno – Stratigraphy
- Faraday – Magnetic theory
- Babbage – Computers
- Agassiz – Ichthyology
- Simpson – Gynaecology
- Mendel – Genetics
- Pasteur – Bacteriology
- Kelvin – Thermodynamics
- Lister – Antiseptic surgery
- Maxwell – Electrodynamics
- Ramsay – Isotopic chemistry
These were all eminent scientists who accepted that there was a Creator who was the First Cause of Creation.
CONCLUSION
The Apostle Paul taught the following:
“For the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain …” (1 Cor. 3:19-20)
And again:
“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:20-21).
The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God – and Evolution proves this. The Bible states of God that:
“… He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” …” (Acts 17:25-26 – ESV).
This is something that Evolutionists cannot disprove, and it is also the logical conclusion based upon observation, and testing against evidence. It is wise to accept the Creator’s Own account of what He did, and shun the foolishness of men!
Christopher Maddocks
