The “Christian” Evolutionist: Peddling Darwin to the Church

How does the theory of evolution impact Christianity? Bruce Malone, President of Search for the Truth, writes:

• “Acceptance of evolution is a poison which will destroy true Christianity. The evidence for this can be seen in the decline of the evangelical belief in Europe as the acceptance of evolution has increased.” 

Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief, World Magazine, has also observed its impact:

• Disavowal of biblical teaching about creation is particularly serious because that perspective underlies so many other positions: In dozens of once-Christian colleges a slip-sliding-away from the first three chapters of Genesis has led to abandonment of the rest of the Bible. (World Mag. October 4, 2014, 60)

Why does this happen? The two worldviews (WV) are in direct opposition to each other. While the evolutionary WV posits a bloody fight for survival from the get-go, the Bible presents a picture of peace and harmony before the Fall. The living creatures didn’t evolve through a fight for survival. Instead, each species had been created according to its “own kind” (Genesis 1:12, 21, 25). Instead of pain and the shedding of blood, even the animals had been created as herbivores (Gen. 1:30). Humankind didn’t evolve but instead was directly created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7). Instead, of a world where every beast was fearfully fighting for its life, God regarded His entire creation as “very good” (Gen. 1:31). In fact, it was so good, that Adam and Eve went naked, experiencing no shame and no fear of being devoured. Nor did they devour. Death wasn’t introduced until sin brought it forth (Gen. 3). In fact, there is not a verse in the entire corpus of Scripture that gives the slightest encouragement to evolution!

How does the “Christian evolutionist” (CE; They used to call themselves “theistic evolutionists” until they realized that as “Christian evolutionists,” they could better gain acceptance in the churches.) explain this blatant contradiction? Easy! Create a false and deceptive distinction! They claim that evolution is only concerned about the physical world and the Bible is only concerned about the spiritual world. Miraculously, this contradiction disappears, since the two systems are concerned about entirely different things!

This, of course, is laughable. Evolution is quite interested in also explaining the origin of morality and religion (the spiritual world), while the Bible has a lot to say about the physical world! Just one example is necessary: A theology of the Cross (spiritual world) depends on the history (what actually happened in the physical world) of the Cross. If Jesus didn’t historically die on the Cross, there can be no theology of the Cross.

There are many other examples of the same thing. Clearly, Jesus understood Genesis 1-3 as teaching something about the physical (historical) world. And what God had accomplished in the physical world was essential to the spiritual or theological world. For example, when the Pharisees challenged him about divorce, He based His answer on the physical work of God in Genesis 1 and 2:

• "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' [quoting Gen. 1:26-27] and said, '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 [quoting Gen. 2:24], let man not separate." (Matthew 19:4-6) 

If Jesus regards Genesis 1-3 as historical, Christians have little choice but to also regard these accounts as historical. Meanwhile the CE claims that they are allegorical. However, no New Testament book denies their historicity. (However, this doesn’t deny that they also have a deeper allegorical meaning.)

All of the NT regard Adam as historical, without giving the slightest indication that Adam might simply be allegorical. In fact, if Adam is merely allegory, then Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must also be allegorical, since they are connected by the same genealogy.

Meanwhile, CEs even deny the historicity of Adam and the Fall. CE Karl Giberson, past co-head of Biologos Foundation, wrote:

• Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science. Dennett’s universal acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred. (Saving Darwin, 9-10)

Nevertheless, he assured his readers that he is still a Christian. However, a couple of years later, he wrote negatively of the Old Testament Deity as a:

• “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity,” “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages…but who believes in this deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.” 

I suspect that most CEs have also “moved past this view of God.” The CE must not only deny Genesis chapters 1-3 but also everything that the NT says about these chapters. Also, by separating the Bible from the physical world, they have dismissed apologetics, the proof of the faith. Without the physical evidence, it is hard to prove the spiritual assertions of the Bible. Here’s one example:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

Romans claims that the evidence for both God’s existence and character have been made plain, so plain that no one has an excuse. However, against the claims of Scripture, the CE claims that the physical world offers no evidence of God. CE Ron Choong, founder of the Academy for Christian Thought, claims:

• Darwin suggested that there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of God. That is correct!

Well, if Choong is right, the Bible is wrong in claiming that we are “without excuse” for not recognizing the evidence for God’s existence.

The Apostle Paul had reasoned with the Athenians in favor of the goodness of God:

• Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." (Acts 14:17)

However, if unguided evolution is a fact, Paul’s argument about the goodness of Paul is wrong. The Athenians then should thank evolution (or chance) and not the hand of God for these “blessings!”

In fact, if the CE is correct, the entire worldview of the Bible has been undermined, as Giberson suggested. Instead, Paul claimed that Jesus is the “second Adam,” reversing the death that Adam had brought into the world:

• For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22) 

If the Bible is wrong about Adam and how he introduced death into the world, what reason do we have to believe that it is right about Jesus! Jesus’ work corrects the evil done under Adam. According to the worldview of the CE, Jesus’ work, since it didn’t reverse the Fall, must have reversed the death and struggle for survival introduced by the Father’s original bloody creation design! Of course, such a notion is theologically unsupportable.

Paul also supported the Genesis account of death and the Fall in this way:

• For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21) 

Romans does not claim that creation had been created in “frustration” and “bondage to decay.” Instead, it claims that creation was “subjected to frustration” and “decay” by God’s will in agreement with the Genesis 3 account of the Fall.

However, these insurmountable problems have not stopped the CE from pushing Darwin into the church and regarding it as ignorant, as Ron Choong does:

• Darwinism exposes Christianity’s weakness in keeping up with the growing scientific knowledge. We use the fruits of scientific technology and blissfully ignore its implications for a contemporary and comprehensive worldview.

Why doesn’t the CE care about the very obvious contradictions between these oppositional worldviews? Jesus alerted us to the dangers about serving two masters:

• "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24)

The CE has made it abundantly obvious which master has won his devotion.

Cosmic Fairy Tales: Who are the True Believers?

Several times a week, I am accused of believing in fairy tales, because I believe in a God who created the entire universe. In contrast, my detractors believe that everything came about naturally, even before there was even “natural” laws - natural causation. In other words, given enough time – and where did that come from? - the universe will jump into existence uncaused. And it must be uncaused, since there was nothing prior to the universe to cause it.

Well, which is the fairy tale – Intelligent Design (ID) or a non-existent naturalism? Perhaps I seem to unfairly be stacking the deck against naturalism, even from the get-go, but I really don’t want to do that. I’d prefer that rationality carry-the-day rather than an alleged misrepresentation of naturalism.

So let’s do this – Let’s look at different features in our universe and see if we can determine which belief system better accounts for them. However, I won’t cite those features that IDers always cite – the fine-tuning of the universe, the elegance and immutability of our laws of science, and the origins of life, the cell, and DNA - to slam-dunk the ID case. Instead, let’s set our sites on something much closer – on the human being.

While many of our characteristics enable us to survive and pass on our genes, we have many other characteristics that seem to transcend this narrow struggle for survival. There are characteristics that seem to merely enrich life and to not aid in procreation. These, therefore, would be difficult to account for from an evolutionary/naturalistic perspective:

Music Appreciation: We not only enjoy music but are often elevated by it. Although a naturalistic explanation can be forced to account for such a trait, it could just as easily be argued that music might take the human being away from his more primary task of survival.

In addition to this, it is often noted that our appreciation of music is strongly associated with precise and elegant mathematical relationships between the notes and chords, suggesting a transcendent design. It is almost as if God had been saying, “I want to share with you something that delights Me!”

Visual Aesthetics Appreciation: How can naturalism explain our appreciation of the visual world? As with our enjoyment of music, this seems to be a gratuitous add-on, a survival non-essential, something that might simply take our attention away from killing a monkey to feed our family. From a Biblical point of view, we were created, not only to survive, but to partake in something higher – God Himself.

Sense of Humor: This sense delights in the paradoxes of life - the things that don’t fit neatly together and perhaps should. This too seems like a distraction from the all-important struggle to survive and procreation. However, it clearly is another gracious add-on – a survival non-essential.

Contemplation and Consciousness: This allows us to become self-aware. While many regard our higher thinking as a bane, something that can render us inactive and morbidly self-conscious in a world where we need to be very active to survive and to pass on our genes, there is also little doubt that contemplation enriches and deepens our lives. It offers us the potential to be truly human.

Nor does this mental work simply concern catching more food. It pursues moral, legal, and epistemological questions.

Moral Sensitivity: Also consistent with the ID paradigm of being created in the image of God, all humanity has sexual taboos. We do not (or should not) sex mother and father, brother and sister, son and daughter. The evolutionist might argue that these taboos served to preserve the genetic integrity of the tribe by limiting the spread of genetic defects. However, a stronger case could be made that inbreeding, such as we find among animals, can maximize the linkage among beneficial genes – a possible aid to evolution.

Also, from an evolutionary point of view, taboos minimize the availability of reproductive partners.

Monogamy: Instead, we find monogamy deeply entrenched in human society. This is an institution that minimizes the ability of the “fittest” from passing on their genes, thereby slowing the engine of evolution.

Similarly, we restrict the “fittest” from passing on their “desirable” genes through our human taboo against rape and the dominant, fittest male controlling all of the females. Besides, why should evolution implant within us a sense of guilt regarding those behaviors – rape and selfishly creating a harem for ones exclusive pleasures – which promote evolution!

Instead, sexual faithfulness is extolled, and this is consistent with the nature of our moral God and the fact that we alone are created in His image.

Altruism: Our God is altruistic. He sacrificed Himself for us, and we are like Him in this sense. Consequently, those who are most admired are not those who pass on their seed with greater frequency but those who think of others first. However, altruism seems to run counter to the evolutionary paradigm. It puts others’ needs before our own to pass on our “superior” seed. It puts sharing above controlling.

Meaning and Purpose: An animal’s purpose is to control scarce resources, whether sexual or material. However, it is a well-accepted fact that humans require a higher moral purpose in life, something that transcends reproductive pursuits. Such an esoteric concern will necessarily detract from attention to survival and reproduction. How then can we explain the basic human need if it not only lacks survival value but actually militates against reproductive fecundity?

However, the Bible provides a perfect explanation for this trait. We have been so designed so that we will not be totally consumed with the material cares of life and will seek after ultimate truth.

Lack of Ultimate Fulfillment: As successful as we might become in our corner of the world, we never find ultimate satisfaction here. We always have a longing for something else – the property of the Transcendent. Why this oddity, this distraction, this restless longing? This trait often leads people into the contemplative life – into the monk’s life – and away from maximizing genetic exchange. Of what procreative value could this reality possibly contain?

Instead, this trait is easily explained from a Biblical perspective. We are simply not meant to be fulfilled here. Our hope is to be invested in the return of our Savior and in His future kingdom.

Deterioration of the Human Genome: If we were ideally created, as the Bible maintains, ID would predict de-evolution - the increasing accumulation of genetic defects, and this is just what we find.

I think that all of these human considerations/realities are better explained by ID than by a naturalistic hypothesis. And which human traits cannot be explained by ID? Which aren’t congruent with the ID hypothesis? I don’t see any.

If these considerations are so, then who is it that believes in fairy tales?