As Evolution is the religion I converted to Christianity from, Theistic Evolution is a particularly irritating heresy to me. Throughout history, Christians have had a range of false beliefs, and given leeway to a variety of false gods, but this one, I see no sanity in. To its maximum extent, Evolution is not even possible. Theistic Evolutionists admit this when they use it as an argument for God! It's mind boggling to me. Rather than thinking "it's impossible without God, so we don't need to explain it", they think "it's impossible without God, so we'll blaspheme God by claiming it's how He did it".
One thing that really took the biscuit for me is a speaker we had at our church once. His topic was not origins, and I don't even think it was science. I'm fairly certain he was only really there because he was a semi-famous person who just happened to be a Christian, so it's encouraging to hear his testimony. But during a Q&A, as often happens in our culture, he did get a question about origins. I can't remember the exact question, as it was many many years ago. But a part of his answer stuck with me, as it was so shocking to me.
The man spoke about a time when he saw a hawk catch and kill a sparrow. In his eyes, this was actually pretty cool. And I'm not even joking, while I can't quote him word for word, he did say it was cool. And he described it in a way that a teenager might describe seeing his science teacher dissect a rat. And so his point was basically if that's God's plan, well, who cares? God is God, He can do what He wants, who are we to criticise?
Well here's my question: Do you think the bird, whom Scripture says "not one of them is forgotten before God" (Luke 12:6), thought the same event was cool? Do you think it praised God for the agony of its final moments? Do you think it was thrilled that it would never see another sunrise, all so it could be a mere nugget for a bigger bird? Do you think it sung for joy as its once beautiful and intricate body plan was callously ripped apart like a piece of tissue?
Now, it's one thing to say "God can do what He wants", but there are two things that would stand against even that. The first is basic observation. As it stands, the more we study, the more we see just how amazingly accurate God's word really is. It used to be that we didn't know there was a beginning. People believed the universe was eternal. But no, now, even the sceptics and the pagans readily acknowledge there was a definitive point at which creation began, just like the Bible says. And we've even regained knowledge. There are things the Bible talks about, like certain species of ants that behave in a certain way, and lions living in different areas than they do today, even arguably dinosaurs, that would have been common knowledge to the original audience, but dropped out of view for a while, and now, after research, we've rediscovered this old information.
But suppose the Bible supported spontaneous generation? Or that explosions are creative forces? Or that there are 5 races of humans, with the Caucasian being the greatest, and being destined to wipe the rest out so it's just us and the apes left? Well, these are all things which are continuously disconfirmed by our observations (sorry Darwin), and so if the Bible presented these things as true, what would a reasonable human being do? A Theistic Evolutionist would rejoice, as these are all Evolutionary beliefs, and say "who are you to question God?" But if science opposed the Bible as strongly as it opposes Evolution, I would have to question God, not on His authority, but on His existence. A reasonable human being does not drop his brain in the bin for his religion. So, put simply, if the Bible was as clearly pro-Evolution as so many compromisers claim, I would have to become an agnostic.
But thankfully, it isn't. And there is another way to show it. The second thing to stand against "God can do what He wants" is to simply ask, does He really want it? That is, is this horrible process of death and destruction really consistent with the character of God? Hard no! The God in Scripture is not a psychotic brute who grins every time something dies an agonising death! He doesn't look at cancer and say "that's very good!" He doesn't show off His creations and say "it took me like... 80 million years to sort this one out, but look, after all those failed models who are now rotting in the ground, I finally made this cool thing. And it's gonna mess up a bunch of my other created things. You're gonna love it."
My friends, that's not a god. That is either a human or a devil, but there is nothing divine about looking at pain, suffering, and misery, and rejoicing over it. Now, keep this in mind: You can go on E-Bay right now and buy a host of blasphemous t-shirts an atheist would find cool. Seriously, they're so offensive, I'm not even going to cite them as examples, and if someone came to any church wearing one, you can guarantee, they'd be asked to leave immediately. "Cool" is a relative idea. What we think is cool, God may consider anything from pathetic to outright damnable.
So, what does He consider death? "The last enemy that will be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26). Ah, so we see death is an enemy. I found it particularly amusing, a Theistic Evolutionist once told me "you might consider death an enemy, but God says it's very good", so I showed him where I was quoting from. He changed the subject.
So death is an enemy. But we don't even need to wait for Paul to tell us that. Simply go back to Moses. It's in Genesis 3. Not even 3 pages in to your average Bible, right there, you see that God created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, in 6 days, called it "very good", gave the green plants to everything, even hawks, as food, and didn't bring death into the world until Adam broke the one command God had given Him up to this point. "Hey Adam, don't eat from that tree, or you'll die." "Ok God, thanks for the warning, I'll just go chill naked in this garden where there's a 0% chance I'm ever gonna see an animal ripping another one's limbs off".
If Adam had never eaten that fruit, billions of years could have passed, and not once would one animal have eaten another. It doesn't matter how "cool" you think carnivory is in this cursed world of sin. You think sin itself is cool! Of course your heart, which produces "...evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:19, cf. Mark 7:21-22) is going to look at this poor little bird losing its life for the sole "crime" of living it and think "oh nice!"
So, can God do what He wants? Sure. But that's why He gets to tell us to repent of our creation compromise. Every time you look at the stain of sin and rejoice, you don't honor Him by saying "He can do what He wants", you dishonor Him by saying "He totally loves that as much as I do". That's no better than the buzz you get from fornication, or gossip, or gluttony, or any other kind of debauchery. Anyone who can look at the brutality of this world post Fall and think this is how it was before there was even one sin to be accounted for needs a good long sit down with their Bible in their hand, because it takes next to nothing to show that this is not the God we worship as Christians.