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Evolution And The Wages Of Sin
Supplemental Reading | |
John D. Morris, Ph.D.
IMPACT
No. 209, November 1990
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Dr. E.O. Wilson, Harvard entomology professor and chief spokesperson for thefield of evolutionary sociobiology, and bitter enemy of BiblicalChristianity, has for decades written insightful articles supporting hisviewpoint. Several years ago, he explained his own background and how hecame to his present stand.
"As were many persons from Alabama, I was a born-again Christian. When I wasfifteen, I entered the Southern Baptist Church with great fervor andinterest in the fundamentalist religion, I left at seventeen when I got tothe University of Alabama and heard about evolutionary theory." (E.O.Wilson, "Toward a Humanistic Biology"; The Humanist, September/October,1982; p. 40).
Interestingly enough, many of the leading anti-Christian voices in thiscountry today come from Christian homes. They know, perhaps better than manyChristians, that evolution and Biblical Christianity areincompatible—irreconcilable world views, as has been pointed out many timeson these pages. In this article, the point at which evolution andChristianity most seriously conflict will be explored.
Whatever else evolution may be, it requires tremendous lengths of time.According to evolution, single-celled organisms underwent spontaneousgeneration from non-living chemicals some three billion or more years ago.Multi-cellular life arose about a billion years ago, with fish appearingabout 500 million years ago. Dinosaurs flourished from about 230 to 65million years ago, after which time mammals began to rule the earth. Mandescended from ape-like creatures within the last three million years.
But evolution also involved death. Organisms have been living and dying foreons in the "struggle for existence," with natural selection allowing the"survival of the fittest" while insuring the extinction of the less fit. Forinstance, it was the extinction of the dinosaurs which allowed the mammalsto dominate and eventually lead to man's emergence. All of thismulti-billion-year "history" is recorded in the fossil record, where remainsof multiplied trillions of dead things are entombed in rocks supposedlydating from times long before man. As Carl Sagan wrote, "The secrets ofevolution are death and time—the deaths of enormous numbers of life formsthat were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a longsuccession of small mutations that were by accident adaptive, time for theslow accumulation of patterns of favorable mutations" Cosmos, 1980, p. 3.
In other words, death plays a prominent part in evolution. In fact, to anevolutionist, death is normal, death is good, death provides the fuel forevolutionary change; death produced man. Charles Darwin, in the very lastparagraph of his treatise, Origin of Species, after explaining his proposalof evolution by natural selection, and after championing the concepts ofextinction and bloodshed as the mechanism for evolution, wrote hisconclusion:
| "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exaltedobject which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of thehigher animals [i.e. man, ed.] directly follows." |
In other words, death is the natural order of things, and death brought maninto existence.
But how does the Christian religion understand death? As recorded in theBible, just a few thousand years ago God wrote with His finger on a tabletof stone (so we couldn't misunderstand) to inform us that "in six days theLord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested theseventh day" (Exodus 20:11), thereby providing a model for our work week(the Fourth Commandment). No time is found here for billions of years ofevolution (see Impact No. 184), only a rapid, supernatural creation.
Furthermore, things were quite different in the original creation.Evidently, man and all animals possessing true life in the Biblical sense(with the "breath of life," with blood in which is "the life of the flesh,"with consciousness not present in the plants and perhaps certain of theinvertebrate animals) were created to live forever. There was to be nocarnivorous activity by man (Genesis 1:29) nor animal, for "to every beastof the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepethupon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herbfor meat: And it was so" (v. 30). No meat eating, no bloodshed, no death forany "living" thing in the original creation.
Mankind, especially, was created to live forever. Adam and Eve were created"in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27), the holy, sinless, eternal, deathlessLife-giver. That image is now marred by sin, but originally it was not so,for the Creator called all in that world "very good" (v. 31), and placed init the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9). What sort of world could the God of theBible call "very good"? At the very least, the original world must have beenfar different from our present one.
God did place in that world an opportunity for both man and woman to provetheir obedience to their Creator and return His love. As Creator, Heestablished (and only because He was Creator did He have the authority toestablish) the rules for proper conduct, as well as the penalty fordisobedience. He declared, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,thou shalt not eat of it: For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shaltsurely die" (Genesis 2:17).
The lie of Satan, however, has always included the idea that there is nopenalty for sin. In tempting Eve to disobey, "the serpent said unto thewoman, ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3:4). As we know, the lie wasbelieved, the penalty for sin denied, and sin entered the world. But eventhough the authority of the Creator was disputed and ignored, that authorityremained, and He acted in His holy justice. The resultant curse on all ofcreation was the curse of death, and touched not only mankind—"for dust thouart, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19)—but the animals (v.14), the plants (v. 18), and even the earth itself (v. 17). At that point,the "creation was made subject to vanity (or futility)"—the "bondage ofcorruption." Indeed, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in paintogether until now" (Romans 8:20,21,22).
Note that it was "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin"(Romans 5:12). This death not only entails spiritual death, but alsophysical death, as is made abundantly clear in the classic passage dealingwith the physical resurrection of the dead. "For since by man came death, byMan came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even soin Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians 15:21-22). If Adam's sindid not bring physical death, Christ's resurrection from physical death doesnot bring eternal life.
It is obvious then, that death is very important to the Christian worldview. Death is the result of the entrance of sin into the world. But it ismuch more than that, for it is also the atonement for sin—the just paymentfor sin. The first death recorded in Scripture occurred when God, Himself,slaughtered animals to provide a covering for sin—the clothing for Adam andEve (Genesis 3:21). Later, we see that the system of blood sacrifices forsin had been instituted, for God accepted Abel's animal sacrifice whilerejecting Cain's bloodless sacrifice (Genesis 4:3-5; Hebrews 4:4). Asdeveloped in both Old and New Testaments, without the shedding of bloodthere is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22, see also Leviticus 17:11,etc.).
Thus we can see that God was not only acting in His justice in pronouncingthe curse of death for sin, but in His grace, as well. For, by establishingthe penalty for sin to be death, He made it possible for Him to send Hisbeloved Son to come and die to pay the ultimate penalty for sin as asubstitute. The "wages of sin" may be death, but "Christ died for our sins"(I Corinthians 15:4). Only the holy Creator, the righteous Judge, could bethe sinless Substitute.
Evolution and the Bible most seriously conflict at this point (theirrespective views of death, which are central to each viewpoint). Ifevolution (or even just the concept of an old earth, with death and fossilspredating man's sin) is correct, then death is natural, death is normal,death produced man. Most importantly, in this view, death is not the penaltyfor sin, for it preceded man and his sin. But if death is not the penaltyfor sin, then the death of Jesus Christ did not pay that penalty, nor didHis resurrection from the dead provide eternal life.
While belief in creation and the young earth may not be essential forsalvation (many Christians wrongly believe and do many things the Bibleteaches against), if evolution is right, if the earth is old, if fossilsdate from before man's sin, then Christianity is wrong! These ideas destroythe foundation for the Gospel and negate the work of Christ on the cross.Evolution and salvation are mutually exclusive concepts.
Many times evolutionists understand this issue better than Christians. Inhis article, "The Meaning of Evolution," atheist G. Richard Bozarth claimsthat "Christianity has fought, still fights and will fight science to thedesperate end over evolution, for evolution destroys utterly and finally thevery reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adamand Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorryremains of the son of God. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus wasnot the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means,then Christianity is nothing" (American Atheist, February 1978, p. 30).
Thus the issues of death and time reveal the utter incompatibility ofevolution, in any form, with Christianity.
But the story doesn't end there. The Bible reveals not only the origin ofdeath, but how this issue will one day be resolved.
There will come a time when this world, so marred by the effects of sin anddeath, including fossils and graveyards "shall melt with fervent heat, theearth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.... Nevertheless we,according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, whereindwelleth righteousness" (II Peter 3:10,13).
The ultimate victory over death will then be realized. "And God shall wipeaway all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neithersorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: For the formerthings are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). In our eternal, deathless home,we will have continual access to "the Tree of Life.... And there shall be nomore curse" (Revelation 22:2,3).
This, then, is the message of Creation! Far more than the origin of speciesand the age of rocks, it is the big picture—the work of Jesus Christ frometernity past to eternity future. As Sovereign Creator, and only because Heis Creator, He had the authority to set the rules and the penalty fordisobedience, and to judge that disobedience. But as Creator, and onlybecause He is Creator, could He redeem the fallen creation under theguidelines He had established.
And only as the Creator—the Author of Life—could He arise from the dead ofHis own accord. Then, as Creator, Judge, and victorious Redeemer, He aloneis worthy to take the throne of the universe and reign in righteousness.
"Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: For Thouhast created all things" (Revelation 4:11). |
"Vital Articles on Science/Creation"
November 1990
Copyright © 1990 All Rights Reserved |
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