Darwin and Biblical Compromise

Theistic evolutionists (TEs) tend to resent and deny the charge that their embrace of Darwin has been at the expense of Biblical revelation. I therefore want to list some of the most critical Biblical compromises that the TEs make and the implications of these compromises:

1. God’s creation placed His creatures in the ideal environment. He called it all “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Even the animals were designed as herbivores, eating only vegetation. This affirms that God is truly good, and the subsequent problems – sin and death – are our fault, not God’s. However, TEs are forced by their commitment to Darwinism to regard the bloody struggle of life and death, the survival-of-the-fittest, as God’s ultimate plan to establish the origin of the species. The absurdity of this is obvious. Consequently, the cunning Cain was acting in concert with God’s plan in killing his naïve brother Abel!

2. Humankind was God’s crowning creation, created in His own image (Gen. 1:26-27), making humankind far more valuable to Him than the rest of His creation. Consequently, there is sharp distinction between humans and the animal world. However, evolution dissolves this distinction in favor of an evolutionary continuum in which the distinctions are merely a matter of degree, and value is determined not by the fact that we are created to be like God (sanctity of life), but rather by an arbitrary appeal to our superior intelligence, productivity, or depth of our feelings (quality of life). To deny the special creation of humankind is also to deny the NT’s affirmation of its historicity and the theology derived from this historical event (James 3:9). It makes man into no more than a more sophisticated animal. It also serves to deprive humankind of the special privileges and protections that our moral and legal systems extend to him.

3. The Fall – the advent of sin and death through Adam – is the Bible’s explanation for our problems. As a result of the Fall, all creation was subjected to decay, awaiting the redemption of the physical world (Romans 8:19-23), which will take place when Christ returns (1 Cor. 15:20-57). However, if we embrace Darwinism, there is no room for a Fall, since sin and death originated long before Adam’s existence. In fact, the entire notion of sin has to be overhauled. Selfishness, competition, and securing exclusive mating privileges become an “essential” under Darwinism. Although TEs will strenuously deny this, it is a necessary part of the naturalistic system into which they have invested themselves.

4. The Restoration (Acts 3:21) to the original order is a “restoration” to the survival-of-the-fittest under Darwinism and not deliverance from sin, decay, and death as the Bible promises. While the Garden account presents us with an explanation of the advent of sin and death, it also provides the hope of restoration through the coming of a child, a second Adam (Gen. 3:15; 1 Cor. 15:21-22), who will reverse the effects of the sin of the first Adam. When TEs undermine that historicity of the first Adam, they also deprive the second Adam of His theological underpinning and impinge upon the theological unity of the Bible.

5. TEs generally “harmonize” Darwin with the Bible by asserting that the Bible is only about the spiritual world while evolution is only concerned with the physical (Good fences make good neighbors.) However, the Bible’s theology is inseparable from its history. The history of the Cross is essential to the theology of the Cross. The history of God creating male and female and joining them as “one” is essential to the theology of marriage, family and divorce (Matthew 19:4-6).

6. TE’s must “spiritualize” Scripture – regarding it as figurative – in order to regard it as exclusively “spiritual” and not physical. However, this creates additional problems:

a. By wrenching Scripture away from its most natural reading – rendering it figurative – interpretation is freed from all necessary constraints and simply becomes a reflection of whatever we want to read into Scripture. Therefore, there can be no certainty or assurance about what it is really saying.
b. The Bible consistently provides commentary on what has already been written. This commentary reaffirms its historicity, whether through its genealogies or theological reexaminations. The TE is therefore coerced by his presuppositions to reject the plain meaning of Scripture – adding and subtracting from the Word (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18-20). Although they claim that it’s about honest interpretation, it resembles the coercion of the text into conformity with an alien worldview.