False Teachers, Theistic Evolutionists, and the Church

Jesus often warned about false teachers. Here is one such warning:

• “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" (Matthew 15:6-9)

Theistic evolutionists (TEs) – now they call themselves “Christian evolutionists” – are similar to the Pharisees. Although they do not “nullify the word of God” for the sake of their traditions, they do nullify it for the sake of their first love, evolution. TE Dennis Lamoureaux provides one common example in his denial of an historical Adam and Eve:

• Paul was a first century man steeped in the historical and scientific categories of his generation… Paul had no choice but to believe in the historicity of Gen 3 [the Fall with the introduction of sin and death] and the causal connection between the sin of Adam and the entrance of pain and mortality into the world. Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Cor 15:20-49 are evidence of this fact [that Paul had been mistaken]. However, the historicity of Adam, the attribution of divine judgmental action for his sin, and the origin of physical suffering and death as a consequence are notions conceived from an ancient phenomenal perspective. These events in Gen 3 never happened because they are based on ancient history and ancient science, and Paul had no way of knowing this.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol. 37/Number 06, 22)

“Paul had no way of knowing this?” Has this TE forgotten about this existence of the Spirit? It is one thing to say that Paul lacked complete knowledge. It is another thing to claim that he wrote without correct knowledge! In other words, Lamoureaux claims that he has a superior knowledge which trumps what Paul had written. He wants us, therefore, to place our faith in him and the present scientific consensus rather than in the Bible. Meanwhile, Paul argues that Adam had been just as real and historical as Jesus:

• Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men… For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:12, 15-19)

If what Adam had done wasn’t real, then what Jesus had accomplished is also thrown into doubt. Here is how Garrett J. DeWeese puts it:

• If Adam is not the progenitor of H. sapiens, then the doctrine of the fall as it has been understood in Christian theology for two thousand years is false, and the entrance of sin into humanity remains a mystery… There is a strong correlation between accepting TE and rejecting substitutionary atonement [that Christ for us] as an antiquated doctrine rooted in medieval retributive thinking. (23)

DeWeese is correct. To deny the role of Adam is also to deny the role of Jesus. How then should we respond to the teaching of the TE? How did Jesus deal with the scribes and Pharisees of His day:

• "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)

Evidently, their hearts were far from Him!

Start with Denying Adam; End by Denying God

My Response to a Theistic Evolutionist:

Based upon the Bible’s own testimony regarding the historicity of Adam and Eve, responsible interpretation must conclude that they actually existed. However, many theistic evolutionists (TEs) deny their historicity, while claiming that they merely interpret the Bible differently. However, their “interpretation” is Darwin-driven as one TE readily admits.

In “Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and an Evolutionist,” The TE and former co-head of Biologos, Karl Giberson, writes that you can comfortably marry both Jesus and Darwin. However, I appreciate the fact that he admits that there is a price:

• “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 [his theory of evolution] 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.” (9-10)

Nevertheless, Giberson assures his readers that the acid stops there and will not go any further. Perhaps he really meant this. However, Darwin’s acid knows no limits, and our compromise with the text of the Bible opens the door to even more compromise – a slippery slope. Consequently, a few years later, Giberson wrote that the OT God is a

• “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity,” who “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages…but who believes in this [OT] 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.” 

The TE will inevitably move “past this view of God” – the God whom Jesus accepted as His Father! I appreciate the fact that Giberson had been transparent about its implications. However, most TEs will not be so, and will insist that they have just as high a regard for Scripture as the creationist.

This is the very thing that Jesus had warned about:
 

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

Devotion to Darwin will inevitably undermine our devotion to Jesus.