Before I answer this question, I want us to remember that in everything we do or in everything we strive to answer, we are to remain humble. I also want to stress that there is a danger in reading something into Scripture that is not there and that God gave us the natural world so that we might steward it well. That means learning from it, but also being honest about what we see and do not see.
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Since everything we do should be Biblically based, I want to observe the creation account with you:
Genesis 1:1-2:3
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and He called the darkness “night.” Evening came and then morning: the first day. Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day. Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land “earth,” and He called the gathering of the water “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so. The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Evening came and then morning: the third day. Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years. They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars. God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth, to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. Evening came and then morning: the fourth day. Then God said, “Let the water swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So God blessed them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” Evening came and then morning: the fifth day. Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it. I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day. So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.
Here is my position. I am not convinced of Darwinian evolution as the process by which God chose to create life. In Scripture, we are not given the mode of creation, only that God spoke His creation into existence and that He is intimately involved in His creation. Whether or not God used a certain type of evolution in His creation, the story is not changed and there are many evolutionists who are also good Christians and very faithful to Christ and to the authority of Scripture.
If someone believes that we are the result of some evolutionary processes, then he or she is going to interpret the creation account differently (using an organization or an allegorical view of the text); but I am under the conviction that a literal interpretation is the best interpretation of the creation account. In any manner of interpretation, the authority of Scripture is still important and we still answer the question the text was written to answer: and that is “Why?”
How do we know if evolution is true or not? Well, I don’t think it’s something we can know specifically. We can make guesses, but Scripture does not give us a mode of creation and the scientific method is incapable or proving an evolutionary process. This being said, I think it is dangerous to teach Darwinian evolution as fact because science is incapable of proving it and Scripture has not described it. The most we can say is that mutations sometimes occur and that creatures of the past have similarities with creatures on the earth today. Even DNA looks similar; but it is dangerous for us to assume that correlation means causation.
In short, we cannot know the mode God used to bring about life; only that He spoke it into existence and created people in His own image. Belief in evolution does not prohibit someone from believing in Christ.
Evolution and creation are diabolically opposed. One cannot be true without the other being false. Think about this: Evolution proclaims, man came through a process of death. God’s word says, by man came death (1 Cor. 15). Evolution: death=man; Creation: man=death. Also, consider Romans chapter one which tells us that God is clearly seen through the creation, so much so that God says they are without excuse. He says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (1:22). My friends we are living in a day full of wise fools.(1:18) says they, “…hold the truth in unrighteousness;”
There is much truth against the lie of evolution. Evolution is their religion. It cannot be proven, therefore you must have faith to believe it. We believe “In the beginning God” They believe in the beginning rock. Check it out.
God bless you, Preacher Ken
Thanks for your input, Ken! This is one of the reasons I find evolution a difficult concept to buy in to as well. My fear, though, is that we read too much into this text. The only thing I think we can know for sure according to the text is that there was no human death before the fall. We might be able to conceive of a world in which there was a progression of evolutionary transitions leading up to God’s creation of humankind. Then God placed His image on humankind. Afterwards they rebelled against Him and earned death. This is how many of my close friends choose to look at the text because they are convinced that evolution is the way by which God chose to bring about living creatures. In this view, 1 Cor. 15 is seen as specifically referring to human death (and I actually think this is a good way to see 1 Cor. 15). To illustrate the point, we might ask how the serpent in the garden was able to be corrupted. People had not yet sinned, yet there was some sort of corruption in God’s creation because the serpent clearly acted against God. This remains if the serpent is Satan himself, for Satan was a fallen creature living on the earth even before humankind fell. If there could be corruption in creation prior to the Fall, then we can at least conceive of there existing death outside of the human race before humankind fell from God.
I say all this not to argue in its favor. I am a literal six-day guy. I say all this to outline that there is a reasonable way to believe otherwise and that those who believe otherwise do not necessarily forsake Scripture. We would do well to make the Gospel the central focus of our message rather than spending so much time telling the world that it is wrong every time it makes a claim (especially when those claims disagree only with our own thoughts and not with Scripture). Perhaps we should not profess ourselves to be wise.
Evolution, specifically Darwinian unguided evolution driven by random mutation and natural selection, has become a sort of religion to so many. People do use their belief in such an evolution as an excuse to not believe in Christ or in the existence of God. This, though, is to their own detriment. Our objective is to love them and share the message of Christ with them. Our goal as we approach the natural world is to do our best, with the imperfect cognitive facilities we have in the current state of affairs, to discover the truth and not to claim that we are always right in everything that we think. Humility is so important.
Thanks again for your comment!