As a freshman biology major, I needed no convincing of the Theory of Evolution. Raised on the Discovery Channel and Bill Nye the Science Guy, I’d been an Evolution evangelist for years. But by the end of my first year in college, I rejected the Theory I once loved. My grounds were scientific in nature.
I had realized that the untestable Theory runs afoul of the scientific method, is built upon the inexplicable singularity of the spontaneous generation of matter, energy, life, and all natural laws, it violates Newton’s second law of thermodynamics concerning total entropy of a system (i.e., chaos does not tend toward complexity), and the vaunted fossil record for human Evolution is as much plaster as it is fossil and could fit into the trunk of a Honda Civic. But years later, I was confronted by even better, biblical reasons to eject evolution.
1. The Span of Creation
Evolutionists claim that life on Earth descended from a single-celled, self-replicating organism via naturally selected, random mutations which were passed down from generation to generation leading to ever-increasingly complex organisms. How long does something like that take? In his Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, the father of Evolution, suggested that this process has been running strong for “an almost infinite number of generations.” His initial suggestion, hundreds of millions of years, has since ballooned to the current scientific consensus of about four-to-five billion years.
But the Bible presents a very different timeline: “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Ex. 20:11). There are compelling reasons to understand the six days of creation as literal, 24-hour days.
First, the record of God’s work of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 bears the linguistic, Hebrew hallmarks of historical narrative.[1]
Second, the plain reading of the text begs for a literal interpretation. Consider Genesis 1:5, “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” We find that same formulation five more times in Genesis 1. What could Moses have said to more clearly describe a literal day?
Third, while the Hebrew word yom or “day” sometimes refers to an unspecified period of time, whenever it is qualified by an ordinal number (i.e., “first,” “second,” etc.) its meaning is always literal.[2]
Fourth, and most significantly, every other mention of the creation account in the Bible refers to a literal event as recorded by Moses. So, even if evolution could occur within five billion years (which it could not), the Bible does not allow for that span of time.
2. The Kinds of Creation
In 1831, Charles Darwin began his five-year expedition aboard the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Beagle. In the Galapagos Islands, he noticed slight variations between species of finches on different islands. He concluded that these various specimens must have descended from a common ancestor and changed over time to survive in their varied environments. Darwin applied his theory of change, or Evolution, to all life on Earth which, he speculated, must have descended from a common ancestor.
This hypothesis is incompatible with the biblical account of creation. Every living thing God made was created, “according to its kind.” This phrase is repeated ten times in Genesis 1. As God separated light and darkness, the waters above and below, and the sea and earth, he also built biological barriers of “kind” that govern all life on earth. Though He kindly endowed His creatures with the ability to adapt to suit their environments, no creature can transcend the Creator’s wall of kind. Cotton seeds bring forth cotton. Chickens emerge from chicken eggs. And people make people. Darwin’s Evolution is a lie designed to rob God of His glory by seeking to explain the brilliance, beauty, and biodiversity of His world without Him.
But some will say, “Couldn’t we read Genesis 1 as God’s work of creation by means of evolution?” No. He made his creatures according to their kind. And kinds cannot become other kinds.
3. The Goodness of Creation
Evolution is the theory that all life on earth descended from a single organism. How? What is the vehicle of this Evolution? The proposed means of Evolution is “mutation,” random genetic accidents that, Darwin speculated, give a creature an advantage to survive in its ever-changing environment and pass on its new – mutated, but improved – genetics. Evolutionists insist that this process of mutation and death produces ever increasingly complex organisms.
But when God looked upon the plant and animal life that He created, He saw that they were good. Good creatures do not need drastic evolutionary improvement. Furthermore, creatures that God made and called “good” do not mutate becauseof broken genetics, and they certainly do not die. Therefore, the Bible rejects the possibility, the assumed necessity, andthe proposed means of Evolution. And so must we.
The famous Atheist apologist Richard Dawkins is correct when he says, “The evangelical Christians have really got it right in seeing evolution as the enemy. Whereas the more sophisticated theologians are quite happy to live with evolution are deluded – I think the evangelicals have got it right in that there really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity.”[3]
But if God’s good creatures were not created to suffer defects and death, what happened? This is a fair question becauseGod’s creatures certainly do suffer defects and death. Have any of you lost a beloved pet? Growing up, our family dog was a pedigreed miniature schnauzer named Mac. Mac lived 16 years. But the last years were not pretty. His skin grew dry and flakey, and his hair fell out. His once clear eyes had become clouded with milky cataracts. When he began suffering terrible seizures, my parents knew that it was time to say goodbye. It was a sunny Friday afternoon in May, and I remember sitting with Mac in the backyard one last time as he licked tears from my cheeks.
You do not have to be young to know that kind of pain and to wonder, “What has happened to God’s creation?” The Bible tells us: sin happened. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Rom. 5:12).
When Adam sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit, he plunged humanity into an estate of sin, misery, and death. By Adam’s sin, death, disease, defects and decay were unleashed like a plague upon God’s good world. You see, when Adam sank humanity in sin, he took the whole world with him. Paul explained, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it…” (Rom. 8:19f).
Creation is under a curse with physical and spiritual effects, but it was not so in the beginning. Before Adam’s fall, God saw that His creatures were good and good creatures do not mutate and die.
4. The Jewel of Creation
Darwin applied his Theory of Evolution to more than just finches. In The Descent of Man, Darwin argued that human beings evolved from apes: “It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man’s nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere.” In an interview with former head of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya Bishop Boniface Adoyo, Richard Dawkins asserted it a bit more bluntly, “I am an ape. I am an African ape. I am very proud to be an African ape and so should you be.”[4]
But the Bible tells a very different story of human origins. Human beings are not brute animals, bestial links in a long evolutionary chain, but the crown jewel of God’s creation. Unlike any other creature that God made, man is not the result of a divine fiat, “let there be,” but rather a divine council, “Let us make man…”(Gen. 1:26).
The three Persons of the Godhead held an inner-trinitarian summit in the collaborative creation of mankind. Why the special treatment? Unlike anything else that God made, man was made “in the image of God and after His likeness” (Gen. 1:27). Man was created to reflect and represent God on the earth. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “God created man male and female, after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, with dominion over the creatures” (WSC 10).
To assert an evolutionary origin of human species, and to reject the special creation of man in God’s image and an historical Adam and Eve from which all humanity descends, is to detonate one of the load-bearing pillars of the gospel itself. Paul explained, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:18f). The Bible teaches that Adam was as much an historical reality as Jesus.
In fact, Adam’s curse and corruption find their cure in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Whereas Adam fell when tempted (and all humanity with him), Jesus stood and fulfilled all righteousness for His people through His sinless life and sin-atoning death on the cross. More than merely a flawed interpretation of the Bible’s account of creation, Evolution strikes at the vitals of the gospel itself.
When we consider what the Bible teaches regarding the span, the constituent kinds, the goodness, and the jewel of creation, one can only conclude that it is utterly incompatible with the Theory of Evolution and therefore must be rejected by Christian believers. “Let God be true though every one were a liar…” (Rom. 3:4).
[1] Click here to read more on how to understand the opening chapters of Genesis in the original language. The linked article is by PCA Teaching Elder Dr. Benjamin Shaw who presently serves on the faculty of Reformation Bible College and for many years taught Hebrew and Old Testament as Academic Dean at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
[2] Click here for an excellent popular-level article written by the late Dr. David Menton (1938-2021), who served for years as an award-winning professor in the Anatomy Department at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.
[3] Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis references Dawkins’s interview in which he made these remarks on Revelation TV in the UK here.
[4] You can watch a brief YouTube video in which Dawkins makes these remarks around the 37-second mark here.
