BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS, AND CHRISTIAN GROWTH

As a new Christian, I read the Scriptures to find the verses that made me feel good about myself. I even imposed my agenda upon Scripture, coercing it to say what I wanted to hear.

This is what "Christian" evolutionists do when they impose their evolutionary agenda upon Scripture to neutralize the many verses that do not coincide with it, even to the point of claiming that Genesis does not teach about the physical world, just the spiritual. Hence, with this one strategic blow, they have eliminated any verse that might contradict evolution, and there are many!

In contrast, faithfulness requires us to hear what Scripture is saying even when it goes against our worldview, even when it hurts. Such is Christian growth.

UNDERSTANDING “CHRISTIAN” EVOLUTIONISTS

“Christian” evolutionists (CE), and this is how they refer to themselves, believe in both evolution and in the Bible. They claim that we can have both without compromising.

However, we should be quick to observe that the Bible presents, right at its foundation, a very different worldview. It claims that God created animals after six sets of days and nights, each producing after its own kind. Each had been an herbivore, and God considered everything He had created as “very good” (Genesis 1:31), suggesting that there had been no sin and death.

Meanwhile, evolution claims that God created through natural selection, the bloody quest for survival and dominance, over billions of years. This means that sin and death were from the beginning, part of the “glorious” plan that God had originated to create the species.  

In contrast, the Bible holds that sin and death found its origin in Adam and Eve and the resulting Fall (Genesis 3; Romans 8:20-22). In other words, sin and death came because of our rebellion and not because of any fault in God’s plan.

Clearly, evolution is at odds with the Bible and its theology. If God’s ultimate plan had relied upon the survival-of-the-fittest, then who could blame Cain, evidently the fittest, for killing his relatively unfit brother, Abel! Besides, Christian theology depends on the Fall to explain the work of Jesus, the “second Adam.”

How does the CE reconcile these very evident tensions? Easy – the CE regards Genesis 1-11 as non-historical. According to their formulation, science is concerned about the physical world, while the Bible is concerned about the spiritual or theological world and not history or science. And since the two are dealing with entirely different worlds, there can be no possibility for contradiction, right?

Wrong! For one thing, the Bible makes no such distinctions. Instead, we find that theology is directly and inseparably connected to the physical world. For example, we cannot have a theology of the Cross without a history of the Cross – that Jesus actually and historically died on the Cross.

Besides, the contexts of the Bible argue persuasively that theology and history (the physical world) are interconnected. For example, the many genealogies tell us that Adam and Eve were historical:

·       This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. (Genesis 5:1-9; ESV)

This narrative also affirms the historicity of God created the first couple in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). And the problems of the CE do not stop here. Every time that the NT refers to the verses of Genesis 1-11, they invariably refer to them as an historical account of what actually happened. For example, when Jesus was asked about divorce, He answered:

·       “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning [actually and historically] made them male and female [ Gen. 1:26-27], and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ [Gen. 2:24]? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has [historically and actually] joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Had God not actually and historically created and joined them, His argument against divorce would have immediately fallen apart with the simple challenge:

·       Well, this is just a parable. Therefore, if God didn’t historically make them one, then we are free to divorce, since we are not undoing the work of God.

Therefore, to not regard Genesis 1-11 as history is to contradict the entire NT commentary on these chapters.

When I confront CEs with these insurmountable problems, they respond:

·       We have to be humble about our interpretations.

If only they were as humble about the TOE! However, with such “humility,” they have condemned themselves to uncertainly about the entirety of the teachings of Scripture. If they cannot accept the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles at face value, they cannot accept anything that the Bible teaches. This leaves them in a state of confusion and uncertainly.

Consequently, since they are confused about the teachings of the Bible, they have left themselves vulnerable to everything that this world has been teaching them. As a result of this, I have observed that their views are indistinguishable from those of the educated elite, the universities.

I have challenged them about this on many CE Facebook groups and on numerous occasions, asking them, for instance, if they believed in same-sex marriage. None have ever answered this question in the negative.

I have also noted that they never evangelize the non-Christians who frequent their groups, until I shame them into doing so.

Why the reluctance? Without any confidence in their faith in Christ, they understandably will not put their neck out on the chopping block. They have condemned themselves to worldliness. And, if they lack the confidence to speak for Christ, they also lack the confidence to be a Christian in any area that might place them in opposition to their university-educated peers.

Consequently, they think that I am judging them. Although I do not tell them they are unsaved – I will leave that to our God who examines the heart – I point out their inconsistencies and compromises. In love, I think that this is the very thing that our Lord would do.

WHY MACRO-EVOLUTION IS A FICTION

The atheist Daniel Dennett called Darwinism a corrosive “acid” because of its power to dissolve away competing beliefs. I have found this to be very true of the hundreds of dialogues I have had with “Christian” evolutionists, who have consistently compromised the Bible’s teachings, wherever they clashed with evolution. This has occurred so extensively that their opinions are almost indistinguishable from the secular community.

Because of this, I welcome those who can present reasonable and coherent critiques of this theory. The following is a part of Robert P.Crowner’s critique of evolution:

“Geoffrey Simmons, M.D. in his book What Darwin Didn’t Know points out the incredible complexity of the human body and the interdependence of its parts. He points out many examples in the body that illustrate irreducible complexity:

• “Every significant change in the male’s reproductive system had to have been met with a reciprocal change in the female’s (or vice versa).”[11] 

• “The egg knows when it’s time to ovulate, how to pop out, how to travel through the fallopian tubes, how to receive a single sperm and close out other sperm, and how to eventually implant in the uterus.”[12]

• “A cell resembles a miniature industrial complex that is much more complex than a General Motors or Boeing plant.”[13]

• “The brain can store between 100 trillion and 280 quintillion bits of information in a mere three pounds of matter.”[14]

• “Eyes are like antennae for the brain. Millions of cells lining the interior of each eye function as photochemical receivers, converting light waves into a myriad of electrical impulses that are forwarded at a speed of about 200 miles per hour to the brain. There the impulses are sorted, organized and analyzed in holograph ways. All of this is accomplished in milliseconds.”[15]

• “Many hormones work in parallel or tandem, some compete, and some have double and triple functions.”[16]

• “Every action involves a complex array of interacting nerves, muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints, soft tissues, blood vessels, and bones. Millions to billions of cells work in unison.”[17]

In his chapter “Purposeful Design,” Simmons lists 81 facts that he believes point to design rather than chance as postulated in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Simmons points out that Darwin had little knowledge of genetics, physiology, and conception. So how could his theory still be accepted as valid?”

The Impact of the Christian Evolutionist on the Church

Jesus criticized the religious leadership for slamming shut the door of salvation:

• "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13) 

How did they close salvation’s door?

• "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52)

They took away the “key of knowledge” which was intended to open the door to salvation. How did they do this? Did they destroy the Scriptures? They didn’t need to do that. They merely perverted its teachings, obscuring the beauty and clarity of the Word.

Today, we have a new crop of Pharisees and “teachers of the law.” These too are part of the educated elite, who “have taken away the key to knowledge.” Who are they and how have they done this? These are the theistic or “Christian” evolutionists (CEs). They have perverted Scripture by claiming that the first few chapters of Genesis are merely allegory and not creation history. Why do they take this position? Well, if Genesis is not really an account about how God created the physical world, but rather a spiritual allegory, then this allegory cannot contradict the claims of evolution! Therefore, we can live together happily ever after with both Darwin and the Bible.

You might think that this is only a trivial compromise, but it is not. The Jesus/Darwin marriage is a transaction that affects the entire body of Scripture. How? For one thing, the writers of the New Testament and Jesus regarded these early accounts as genuine history and not mere allegory. For example:

• Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:14)

• For Adam was formed first, then Eve. (1 Timothy 2:13)

• For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

• So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)

• [Jesus] the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:38)

• Enoch, the seventh from Adam. (Jude 1:14)

• When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.” (Acts 4:24)

• He also says, "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” (Hebrews 1:10)

• By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Hebrews 11:3)

• Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3)

• In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (Hebrews 1:2)

• God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. (Romans 4:17) 

• Jesus replied, "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mark 10:5-9)

• “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts 17:26)

• For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (1 Corinthians 11:8-9)

• But there is a place where someone has testified: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet." (Hebrews 2:6-8)

All of these verses regard to the first three chapters of Genesis as historical! (And we haven’t even examined the OT commentary on Genesis 1-3!) How does the CE respond? The CE often claims that the NT authors didn’t really regard the Genesis account as historical. Instead, they were merely using language – pious distortions - that they knew would be acceptable to their audience.

However, by resorting to such an interpretation, the CEs turn the NT into an absolute mystery. Everything written becomes suspect. Perhaps everything in the NT is not a matter of truth but pious manipulation. Perhaps Jesus really didn’t rise from the dead, as the Apostles had claimed. Perhaps the Apostles reported this so that the believer might have hope? The Bible then becomes a closed book, useless for little more than entertainment. However, the Bible consistently claims to be “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) and fully the product of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 2:20-21).

The CE has “taken away the key of knowledge.” They have closed the Bible, and they seem to be undaunted by this.

Do they understand what they are doing? Perhaps not! Jesus called the Pharisees “blind guides”:

• Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?" He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit." (Matthew 15:12-14)

The Pharisees might have genuinely but blindly believed in what they were doing. Perhaps also the CE! In any event, they have done considerable damage to the church. Even Dale McGowan, Ph.D, Managing Editor of the Atheist Channel at Patheos, and author of Atheism For Dummies, acknowledges this, quoting Tullio Gregory:

• Once you cast doubt on man’s place in creation, the entire Biblical story of salvation history, from original sin to Christ’s incarnation, is also threatened. 

Even though he is a strong advocate for evolution, McGowan confesses that he is “conflicted” and troubled by message of BioLogos, a CE organization peddling evolution to the church:

• In a BioLogos video titled, “Adam and Eve: Engaging the Tough Questions,” an advisor notes that there are “a lot of proposals out there of when the first sin might have happened, what it might have looked like… we don’t have a simple answer on the question of the historical Adam…who were Adam and Eve, when did they live?” 

• This is always the first step in a crumbling theology – the suggestion that the answer is out there, it’s just very, very complicated. The problem is our ability to grasp the answer. But no worries, there are a lot of proposals. It all makes for an impressive simulacrum of rigor, an army of question marks in search of meaningful questions. 

As McGowen points out, Biologos has undermined both the clarity of the biblical message and the church’s assurance about it.

The CE has often counseled me that we “have to be humble about our interpretations of Scripture.” However, they are not at all humble about their dismissal of the first three chapters of Genesis as history. Nor are they humble about dismissing the NT’s clear assertions that Genesis is history. It would therefore seem reasonable to apply Paul’s invective to the CE:

• I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:6-8) 

Let us pray that they will no longer hide behind mystery or “that the answer is out there, [but] it’s just very, very complicated,” but would repent!