Creation and Evolution

CREATION AND THEISTIC EVOLUTION

I don’t understand everything about theistic or Darwinian evolution. Nor am I a scientist. What one can glean from writings on either side of the fence is not always accurate. I also understand that there are genuine believers who find the theory of evolution so convincing that they feel obliged to accept its ‘findings’. However, what concerns me is the apparent ease with which some dismiss or simply disregard crucial verses and passages of scripture, or with what ardour they defend theistic evolution against the plain teaching of the Bible. This is written to challenge things which, in my opinion, are too easily taken for granted, and to pose what I hope are pertinent questions. Now there may different versions of theistic evolution and indeed intelligent design. It is not my purpose here to explore all of these different theories. I simply use the term theistic evolution for the idea that God was involved in some way in the process of evolving ‘simple’ life-forms into more complex ones. (Of course, if one is to be accurate, there is nothing simple about a single-cell organism and science still fails completely to explain the process by which such an organism could have come about. The idea that certain gases and chemicals merged under sunlight and allowed some sort of photosynthesising compound or ‘simple life-form’ to come into being is simply guesswork, a stab in the dark. What is concerning is that this is related as fact in TV documentaries and in schools, whereas it is more truthful and scientific to say that they simply do not know how life started – because they don’t. There is no evidence to support the above suggestion. None whatsoever! Why don’t they simply say so? Are they too embarrassed to express such ignorance? It would do science more credit if they did. What is wrong or unscientific about saying, ‘We don’t know how life started but here are some possible scenarios!)

Here is some interesting information:

It is said that chimpanzees share 98.5% of the human DNA…

This could create the impression (deliberately or otherwise) that chimps are 98.5% human – or that we are 98.5% chimpanzee! In other words, this figure is sometimes presented in such a way as to suggest that chimps and humans are very close in evolutionary terms, that it is only a small step for chimps to develop into humans, or indeed that humans developed from apes. However, this would be totally misleading. Surely, it is not as simple as that. Let’s put it into some kind of context. Scientists also tell us that a banana shares about 50% of our genes, the cabbage about 57%, the fruit fry about 60%, the mouse about 65% and the nematode (a millimetre-long soil-dwelling worm) about 75%. Now, who would claim that we are 57% cabbage? Or that a fruit fly is 60% human? Or that a nematode is ¾ of the way to becoming a human (see photo above)? Can you find anything less likely to look like a human than the nematode, which shares 75% of our genes? When we look at these figures it puts the proposition in a whole new light and we might be forgiven for feeling misled. Scientific information should be presented in proper context and should incorporate the main relevant details to give a balanced and objective perspective on things. To be selective in what one chooses to reveal in order to support a particular viewpoint constitutes bias or propoganda, not rational debate or science.

That a chimp may share 98.5% of the human genome in no way means that it is 98.5% human or even near to becoming human (or ever became human) in any evolutionary process. Such similarity in DNA, whether in a chimp or the nematode, does not of necessity denote a common ancestry, that is, that humans evolved from apes or from a nematode, or from a cabbage for that matter! It can equally be evidence of a common Creator. What could be more natural that God, who made all living things, should create them by using common biological building blocks for certain functions in organic life forms, and other building blocks to establish a difference between them?

The other false impression that can be created is the inference that a 1½% gap in the genetic code between chimps and humans is incredibly small and that in ‘evolutionary’ terms this brings them very close together. However, the reality of the situation is quite different. Namely, DNA contains its information in the sequence of four chemical compounds known as nucleotides. The human DNA has at least 3,000,000,000 nucleotides in sequence. The genetic difference between human and the chimpanzee, is said to be about 1.5%. Calculated out, that is a gap of at least 48,000,000 nucleotides which are not the same! The enormous magnitude of this difference is brought home to us when we are told that a change of only half a dozen nucleotides can be fatal to a species! Some therefore consider such a gap to be unbridgeable in evolutionary terms.

Let’s look at it this way. Someone can say that you are 98.5% of the way there. This may sound very encouraging and very close. We might imagine 100 metres. If you have already covered 98.5 metres, then you are only 2 short steps away! Hooray! But what if the distance is 3 billion miles? That leaves only 48,000,000 miles for you to cover! If you walked day and night without stopping for 100 years you will never reach your destination! Facts and figures can be misleading. It depends how they are presented!

The other issue that is not addressed properly, is that changes in the genetic code more often lead to disease, disfigurement or even the demise of a species, rather than its survival as a more efficient organism. It is incredible to think that the kind of random genetic changes that would have been necessary to lead to the creation of millions of different species of such different size, shape, colour, and biological structure, has does so fairly flawlessly and did not stall at the outset!

Whichever scientific arguments may have the greater validity, the above comments are given to illustrate how complex the matter really is and that this theory is far from having real conclusive proof! Whether it is genetics, geology or methods of dating objects, processes of interpretation are involved. These processes are not necessarily infallible. However, too easily assumptions are made about the infallibility of these methods when presenting data and conclusions. The danger is that the manner and means of interpreting such ‘evidence’ is taken as full-proof; that scientific interpretation is taken as absolute fact. Had you told scientists 100 years ago that all the celestial bodies you see in the night sky exploded out of an infinitesimally small speck, would they not have called you mad? Science doesn’t always have the answers, or the right answers. One should have thought this would lead to more modest or qualified pronouncements rather than dogmatic statements. This does not always seem to be the case though. When debating these issues on national TV and being accused of arrogance, professor Peter Atkins responded with, ‘What’s wrong with arrogance when you’re right.’ The Australian advocate of creationism, John Mackay, when travelling the UK in 2006 challenged scientists to open debate concerning evolution. No one responded. Ironically, and in contrast to Professor Atkins, Professor Lisa Jardine, a BBC commentator, in defence of the scientists who refused to enter into debate with him, wrote, ‘ …no scientist will take up challenge to "prove" the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution in a public debate. They know they cannot present a strongly held view based on a body of supporting evidence with the absolute certainty of revealed truth.’ Her article makes very interesting reading. It represents the case that evolution cannot be proven scientifically in a conclusive way since there may be other factors yet undiscovered that they yet modify or undermine the original theory. This was her explanation in the article as to why no one wished to debate the issue with Mr. Mackay (

The above comments represent only a very few samples of the challenges that can be levelled at the theory of evolution. However, we will now consider the claims of theistic evolution, which suggests that God manipulated the evolutionary process to develop human beings.

Divine Creation or Theistic Evolution?

Firstly and significantly, the Bible universally and clearly testifies that God created man and all living creatures. The Bible does not bear witness to the idea of evolution in any shape or form, nor is it ‘hinted’ at in any way whatsoever. If God evolved man out of more primitive life forms over millions of years, then why did God inspire Moses (this article recognises Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch or Torah, even as Jesus did) to write in Genesis an account that plainly depicts creation? Why portray so vividly and in detail something that never happened? And why does the Bible in no way and at no stage suggest an evolutionary process? Theistic evolution needs to give some convincing scriptural answers to this and the other questions posed below. Some say that the Genesis account of creation is just allegorical, poetic, or something written in the style of a hymn. In other words, it is not meant to be taken literally. But one can’t just sideline the text so easily! An allegory depicts or reflects a truth; it is not meant to contradict the truth it claims to depict! If the account is ‘just’ an allegory, what is it an allegory of? The account of creation in Genesis is not an allegory for evolution! It presents the creation of life on earth in away that directly and explicitly contradicts an evolutionary process. Was this just an accident? Similarly, the (red herring) argument that the Bible is ‘not meant to teach us science’, fails to apply rational processes of thought to its own contention. Namely, if Gensis I and 2 were ‘not meant to teach us science’, why did God Himself choose to depict a scenario that either has no resemblance to evolution or that actually contradicts what He actually did. Why would God do this? God could have inspired a different allegory to be written that may not have been ‘science’ but still have been at least roughly consistent with the process of evolution! Why is there such a silence in answer to this question? Is it due to a hesitation to verbalise the only logical alternative? Namely, a denial of the divine inspiration of the Bible. Either you deny the divine inspiration of the scriptures, or you make out that God had something written that He knew was totally misleading!

Before you can conclude that it the text is only allegorical and not literal, you need to give serious consideration to 1) the nature of the Hebrew text; 2) to the account itself, and what it does represent, and 3) to the fact that it harmonises with the rest of the Bible.

Similarly, it has been suggested that God couldn’t give an account of evolution since the people of those days wouldn’t have understood the science of it. This is a remarkable argument indeed! Multitudes of people from the beginning of time and up to the present have believed and accepted the Genesis account of creation as literally true without understanding the mechanics of how God created all things in six days. If men and women can believe and accept literal creation, why wouldn’t they be able to believe an allegorical or literal account of evolution if that had been recorded? You don’t have to understand the mechanics of something in order to believe it or accept it! Otherwise virtually no one would get on an aeroplane! But, you might say, we understand the science of flying today! Most people do not understand the science of aerodynamics at all and they still get on planes because they trust in the knowledge and experience of the experts, and they also of course trust in something that has a proven itself to be reliable. How much more is this true of religious faith! Many accept the account of creation as literal because they trust implicitly in the wisdom, power and knowledge of the Almighty Eternal God and have found Him to be utterly reliable in all things! It is not through science, but…

‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3

Moreover, the theory of evolution has no foundation of demonstrable proof in the way that the laws of aerodynamics demonstrate how an aircraft can fly.

If it was a matter of God making an accommodation to man’s limited understanding, then surely He could have illustrated His power and truth in allegory (or literal fact) by having Moses record that God formed life in the seas first and that through His divine processes He eventually formed man. Those who had a regard for God’s word would have read and believed such an account even as they believe in what has actually been written. From every possible angle, the notion that the ignorance of early man led God to give some sort of fictitious account about the beginnings of life on earth is completely fallacious. It simply doesn’t hold water and has no consistent logic to it. The account of creation is so at variance with the idea of evolution that if evolution were true, it would make the creation account not ‘allegorical’ but wholly fictitious; it would also make the idea that Genesis explains the ‘who’ and evolution the ‘how’ of creation unsustainable – just an unthinking ‘fudge’.

Consider, for example, what kind of God this argument presents us with? It postulates that God evolved man from primitive life forms, but in order not to confuse the human race at the beginning, God invented a fable – a fable that explicitly and directly contradicts what He actually did! Would God, who cannot lie, do such a thing? The suggestion contradicts the very nature of God. Unless, of course, you believe that Genesis was not inspired by the Holy Spirit of God!

If it is suggested that the writer of Genesis did not give an account of evolution because he could not have known about it, then that is the same as saying the passage is not inspired by God and that would make the Genesis account a myth – just something Moses made up out of ignorance or something he ‘borrowed’ from other religions. The Bible itself then becomes unreliable since we don’t know to what extent God inspired it, if at all! Is science then to become the arbiter of how to interpret the Bible? If so, at what stage does science become such an arbiter? The science of 500 years ago? 100 years ago? The science of today or of 100 years from now? If anything, modern science is finally catching up and confirming the truths of the Bible. Stephen Hawking writes in his recent book, ‘The Grand Design’, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing…" He was trying to show that it is no longer necessary to believe in God to explain creation. Far more, he has confirmed what the Bible long ago taught, namely, that God created the word out of that which is not visible! (Heb.11:3). People would have scoffed at such a notion in the past! Science changes and is changing. Why would you make something as changeable as science a yardstick for interpreting important and precious passages of the Bible?

The scriptures teach us that it is by the Holy Spirit that we are to understand and interpret the scriptures – all of the scriptures (2 Peter 1:20,21; 1 John 2:27; John 14:26). There is a fundamental and serious clash going on here. Of himself the writer of Genesis could not have known anything about the origins of life except God should reveal it to him – which is exactly what God did with Moses. It is commendable that people should believe in the inspiration of the Bible and I wouldn’t want to deter anyone from such conviction. However, the idea that theistic evolution does not directly challenge the inspiration the Bible is disingenuous and simply not tenable. To maintain the inspiration of the Bible and evolution is a contradiction in terms. The stance is simply not intellectually sustainable. The only consistent conclusion is that theistic evolution denies the inspiration of at least some of the Bible. Otherwise we have a forced marriage between ideas that are mutually exclusive. You have inherent contradictions that only increase as you look further into the Bible – as we shall shortly see. This is simply a scheme forced upon two irreconcilables by those who impute validity to current scientific theories while still trying to ‘hold on’ to the scriptures. Understandably, for those who believe in theistic evolution, impetus may also be given to this approach by the desire to avoid looking foolish in the eyes of the secular world. This is not an unkind imputation as one very leading ‘evangelical’ said in a debate on national television words to the effect, if not verbatim, ‘People would simply laugh at us if we take the biblical account of creation literally.’ How cheaply we sell ourselves to gain the favour and praise of men!