While this two-part devotion will give seven reasons why the biblical account of creation and evolution do not mix, they both do have one thing in common – they both must be accepted on faith since no one was there at the beginning that can verify either. But my main contention is that it takes much more faith to believe in evolution than creation. After I share my seven reasons, I will ask you to be the judge.
First, God is very good. We read in (Genesis 1:31): “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Clearly, God’s main attributes are His great love, compassion, and mercy. These qualities were wonderfully manifested by Jesus in the New Testament. But when we think of the mechanisms of evolution Ken Ham summarizes it well: “Now think about the methods of evolution: elimination of the weak, survival of the fittest, death and struggle in an evolutionary progression, elimination of the unfit, and so on. Would God have used this method in bringing all life into being and then describe it as good? Of course, not – this would be totally inconsistent with God’s nature as revealed in the Scriptures.”1 If something is very good then evolution clearly doesn’t qualify.
Second, there is no death before Adam’s fall. My friends, the one thing we know about the process of evolution is that it is a process of death. It is clear, that evolution teaches that for millions of years before man came on the scene, we see life and death as the way things were. But the Bible clearly teaches that the death of man didn’t happen until the first man, Adam, sinned. (Romans 5:12) states: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned.” Thus, human death was clearly the result of sin not evolution.
But some may ask what about the animals – was death a part of the animal kingdom? This goes contrary to the clear teachings of Genesis that animals were not to feed on other animals but to only eat plant life. (Genesis 1:30) makes this abundantly clear: “And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. And it was so.” In addition, if everything that God created was very good animals would not kill each other for the sake of killing.
Again, Ken Ham, adds insight here on this whole issue of death and evolution: “Evolution says death plus struggle brought man into existence; the Bible says man’s action led to sin, which led to death. These two are totally contradictory. If evolution is true, then the reason Christ died on the cross has been destroyed.”2
Third, creation is finished. The Bible teaches us that after the sixth day of creation God finished creating and making all that He planned to create. (Genesis 2:1-3) tells us: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Again, if we accept that evolution is the way things came into being, then we must accept that evolution is still occurring with man today. But since it is clear from the Scriptures that God has finished creating, it becomes a real dilemma for a Christian to accept theistic evolution (the belief that God used evolution to create mankind) and reconcile this belief with the Bible.
In tomorrow’s devotion we will explore four more reasons why the Bible and evolution don’t mix.
1 Ken Ham, The Lie: Evolution. (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Inc., 2004), pp. 155-156.
2 Ibid. p. 150.
Amen. Good analysis…