Are Evolution and Biblical Christianity Really That Compatible?

by Ron Foster

After reading Dinesh D’Souza’s book What’s So Great About Christianity? I must say that I found his writing articulate and agreeable all the way up to chapter 11, which begins his treatment of science and Christianity. Part 4 of his book, entitled “Arguments From Design,” has four chapters, chapters 11-14, dealing with astronomy, man, evolution and origins. Here are a few quotes from these chapters:

…our terrestrial existence, indeed the very matter of which we are made, owes itself to a “creation event” that occurred around fifteen billion years ago (118).

Many creationists fight evolution with a desperate intensity, because they fear that if any part of the Bible is proven wrong then none of it will be believed. I respect the dedication and moral fervor of the creationists, although I do not agree with their reading either of scripture or the scientific evidence (141).

Today we know that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old, giving natural selection more time to produce its transformations (144).

The great strength of evolution… (146).

Evolution should be taught… (153)

Though evolution, rightly understood, Christians can affirm that the book of nature and the book of scripture are in no way contradictory (153).

For the Christian, the evolution debate comes down to competing theories about how God did it. My own view is that Christians and other religious believers should embrace evolution while resisting Darwinism. (153)

I may comment on more of these quotes in future entries, but for now I want to focus on the last one. There are, in fact, several reasons why Christians should never embrace evolution. First and foremost, the Bible does not affirms it. On the contrary, the Bible is clear that God created everything in six literal days, and after each day, said that it was good. The only exception is when he made man, after which He added, “It is very good.” Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis, makes a great point when he asks why God would call death, sickness, abnormal mutations and extinction of entire species that He created good. The biblical account explains that death was the result of the curse placed upon man and creation due to man’s sin.

Renowned atheist scientist Carl Sagan wrote:

“If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why is he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution. He’d be out of business if there was any competition.”[1]

Ken Ham writes concerning Sagan:

It’s easy to understand why Carl Sagan viewed the God of the Bible this way. Sagan believed that the fossil record, with all its death, mutations, disease, suffering, bloodshed and violence, represented millions of years of Earth’s history. He also saw a world full of death, mutations, disease, suffering, bloodshed and violence today. So he concluded that any ‘god’ responsible for this seeming mess of life and death could not be all-powerful and all-knowing.[2]

Carl Sagan, along with other secular, unbelieving scientists cannot reconcile evolution with Christianity like D’Souza seems to be able to do. Why? Because if this world is the way it has always been, the way God originally created it to be, then that would mean God has a rather twisted idea of perfection. After all, did He not say after each day of creation, “It is good?” French poet Charles Baudelaire seemed to think so. Francis Schaeffer wrote concerning Baudelaire:

Baudelaire…had a famous sentence: “If there is a God, He is the Devil”… the real Christian would agree with Baudelaire that if there is an unbroken line between what man is now and what he has always intrinsically been, then if there is a God, He must be the Devil. Although as Christians, we would definitely differ from Baudelaire, we would agree with this conclusion if we begin with his premise…[3]

His premise, of course, being that the world the way it exists now is the world as it has always been. Schaeffer goes on:

[Albert] Camus…argued that if there is a God, then we cannot fight social evil, for if we do, we are fighting God who made the world as it is. What [Baudelaire and Camus] say is irrefutable if we accept the basic premise that man stands where he has always stood – that there has been a continuity of intrinsic cruelty.[4]

The problem with subscribing to the world’s system is that we are undermining the very hope God holds out to the world. If evolution is true – if the universe is billions of years old, if dinosaurs and dozens of other creatures lived and died before man ever came on the scene, if man evolved from lower life forms, and if survival of the fittest created a world of vicious cruelty and death – then the world as it appears now, with all its flaws, is the world God intended to create. And, therefore, one must conclude that God’s definition of good does not register as good according to any definition we have been taught. No, God must be twisted and cruel, or at least imperfect.

However, if there has been a disconnect between the world as originally created and the way it is now, between man as originally created and as is now, then there is an explanation of why a good universe created by a good God would no longer be good. If there are millions of years, then there must have been death upon death before Adam and Eve ever came on the scene. And this would indeed not be “good.” But if God created everything in six literal days, then what we are seeing now is a corruption, a muddled distortion of the world as it originally was, as it was meant to be.

While I think D’Souza has many great points in his book concerning Christian history and atheism’s shortcomings, he is far too embracing of the world’s skewed interpretation of scientific data. I fear that he might be leading his readers, Christian and atheist alike, into more despair as they see that the Church offers no answers to the dilemmas they are already facing. In softening the blow of Christianity’s offensive message, we are in the long run only robbing them of the hope the gospel offers, hope which begins in the beginning; that is, in Genesis.

(See this article and more of Ron’s writings at his Vain Hopes blog.)

By Ron Foster Click here for bio and archived articles