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Is the God of Theistic Evolution the Same as the God of the Bible?
Supplemental Reading | |
John D. Morris, Ph.D.
Back To Genesis
No. 111b, March 1998
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Most Christians are uncomfortable with purely naturalistic evolution. Thesolution for many Christians has been to adopt theistic evolution, which isbased on the idea that the God of the Bible employed an evolutionary processto create.
Any listing of the attributes of God would include omnipotence, omniscience,loving, gracious, possessing forethought, and the desire for a relationshipwith man. Would this kind of God have used long ages of evolutionarydevelopment?
Theistic evolution looks back to about four billion years ago when Godbrought just the right chemicals into the right order to form a single cell.This multiplied and mutated for over three billion years until He eitherallowed or caused them to evolve into two-celled organisms, then about 500million years ago into marine invertebrates, such as clams, snails, trilobites, and flatworms.
Over hundreds of millions of years, many types went extinct and were neverseen by man. But the flatworm begat fish, then amphibians, then reptiles andbirds, then mammals. They would live and die, mutate and go extinct. Somewould eat the others. All were subject to disease and starvation. Some, likethe dinosaurs, also passed into oblivion before man arrived. The fossilrecord provides ample evidence of their existence, suffering, and extinctionlong ago.
Just a few million years ago there were upright-walking apes, then Homo erectus, and then Neandertals, "animals" who made tools, employedagriculture, utilized both religious implements and weapons, suffered fromdisease and malnutrition. They enjoyed music and flowers and art, but had nosoul.
Then, just a few thousand years ago, God made true man. He either createdman from scratch or took a sub-human animal and gave it an eternal spirit.As He finished His work, He called it all "very good." God's creation couldfinally recognize His grace, respond in love, and give God the glory due Hisname.
But was it all "very good"? Beneath Adam's feet would lay the fossils ofbillions of animals, many giving evidence of traumatic death. And who werethe long extinct dinosaurs? Had God been experimenting, trying to findsomething He could call His image? Did He not know what He wanted? Was Henot powerful enough to create it without so many missteps? If the creationand redemption of man was His purpose, why did He wait so long?
And why did He use the process of the extinction of the unfit to create? Hisvery nature ultimately impelled Him, the Fit, to die for the unfit. Inredemption, He would strongly denounce personal works as a method ofsalvation. Would He have used survival of the fittest as His method ofcreation and accept "glory" from His creation on this basis?
No, the righteous God revealed in Scripture would create just as describedin Genesis One. Creation would be orderly and wise, with man and his walkwith God the result. It would be deathless and sinless, compatible with theall powerful, Holy, life-giving Creator's label as "very good." |
"Vital Articles on Science/Creation"
March 1998
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