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Theistic Evolution

Theistic evolution is the view that God, indeed, created all things, but that he used evolutionary processes to accomplish His work of creation. some believers in Christianity hold this view, considering that it is consistent with the teachings of the Bible.

Upon careful examination, however, theistic evolution is found to conflict seriously with both the Bible and the scientific evidence, as well as with the theory of evolution held by the majority of the materialistically oriented members of the scientific community. In the authors' estimation, theistic evolution may be held as an explanation of origins only at the expense of such radical compromise of the Bible as to imperil the whole structure of Christian doctrine. and outline of the major objections to this view follows.

Conflicts with the Teachings of the Bible

1. The expression, "after their kind," occurs ten times in Genesis 1, strongly implying the kind of tight boundaries between the kinds that have actually been discovered by the science of genetics.

2. The creation of man from the dust followed by the creation of one woman from his side cannot be reconciled with any evolutionary origin of man without destroying the integrity of the language of the Bible. Problems such as these would raise serious questions concerning the vital doctrines of the verbal inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures.

3. Any evolutionary theory requires vast periods of time, but no such time span is indicated in the Bible (See Appendix B).

4. Such a view raises serious concerning the attributes of God, particularly His sovereignty. According to Psalm 33:9, "...He spoke and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." But according to theistic evolution, God spoke and then had to wait a billions years or more for His creative word to be fulfilled.

5. The biblical doctrine of man and of redemption is grounded in the unity of the entire race in Adam (Romans 5:12-21, 1 Corinthians 1521-23, 45-50).

6. And effort to correlate the creation days of Genesis with the eras and periods of historical geology fails abysmally. For example, in Genesis land plants were created first, but historical geology has marine animals evolving first, preceding plants by hundreds of millions of years.

Conflicts with Scientific Evidence

1. Theistic evolution must face the same scientific difficulties that materialistic evolution does, as presented in The Creation Explanation.

2. There is no scientific evidence for slow evolutionary process guided by divine intelligence.

Conflicts with Evolutionary Theory

Modern evolutionary theory, by definition, leaves no place for teleology (purpose, design, guidance, goal) or divine influence in nature. The standard view of evolutionary scientists is the epidemy of pure philosophical materialism in action. God can have no part whatsoever in the process of evolution. On the other hand, theistic evolution is supposedly a process that God uses in some manner to achieve His work of creation. Consequently, theistic evolution and the Darwinian evolutionary theory advocated in all secular universities and secular scientific journals are two mutually exclusive concepts. Therefore, those who embrace theistic evolution, to be logically consistent, should explicitly reject Darwinian evolution. Evolution cannot, at the same time, be both an unguided, purposeless process and a guided, purposeful process.

In the light of the above analysis, does it not appear likely that many professing Christians and other religious believers who opt for theistic evolution do so because they want to keep their religiosity and at the same time be at peace with the imposing scientific establishment. They apparently are unwilling to suffer the disapproval of the secularist anti-Christians whose creator-god is evolution. This is surely a very weak variety of religious faith.

Our Conclusion

It is our position that the most secure and reasonable position, both biblically and scientifically, is the one promoted in The Creation Explanation that is based upon a straightforward, essentially literal understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis and of the entire Bible. Recognizing that some Christians may continue to disagree with us, we would not impugn their faith, but we sincerely urge them to consider afresh the plain teaching of the Scriptures in dependence upon their Author, the Holy Spirit.