This article was originally written for Question Evolution Day 2020.
The saddest thing about Question Evolution Day is the range of the audience who needs it. Historically, pagans believed similar things to Evolution, yet the Church was more than capable of defending the faith against such silly beliefs. In the modern day, however, atheists have managed to disguise the Evolutionist religion as "science". As a result, even many Christians have been lead astray.
Far from being an evidence-based faith, Evolution is actually based on a commitment to a philosophy known as Naturalism. Evolutionists must assume that there is a natural explanation for everything, including origins, and thus even when the evidence strongly supports a supernatural explanation, that explanation is rejected, because, in the words of Richard Lewontin, "we cannot allow a divine foot in the door". (1)
Any Christian should take issue with this. Heck, any rational thinker should take issue with this. Rejecting an evidence-based conclusion just because it doesn't fit your pre-determined conclusion is the highest form of bias. But for the Christian, this should be the biggest red flag of all. Why? Because we know that God has the absolute right put His divine foot in any door He pleases.
The Christian holy book opens with the words "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth". This alone tells us that the origins of the heavens and the earth (i.e. the whole universe) was not a natural event. It's not "in the beginning, nothing magically exploded and became everything", it's "in the beginning, GOD created the heavens and the earth".
But God did not stop there. Rather, the Scriptures follow this proclamation with an orderly account of exactly how God created. This account does not match Evolution very well at all. This fact should be evident from how long it took to make up Evolution. The book of Genesis is 3,400 years old. Yet, for centuries, both Jews and Christians were unanimous in their rejection of Evolutionary beliefs. If Genesis described Evolution, Evolution should be 3,400 years old. At least one group should have been like "hey guys, we think this passage might actually be describing a time period of billions of years".
The creation account is more than just a historical side note. God didn't just say "oh, by the way, this is how I created the heavens and the earth". Rather, Creationism serves as the basis for a number of other important doctrines. In Exodus 20:11, we are told that the creation week is the basis for the 7 day week and the Sabbath. In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Jesus uses Creationism as the basis for the doctrine of marriage. In 2 Peter 3, Peter tells us that our view on Creationism affects our view on the return of Christ. Those who deny the return of Christ also "deliberately forget" creation and the flood.
Theistic Evolution also affects several major doctrines. Perspicuity and Biblical Inerrancy, for example. If Evolution is true, then either the most perspicuous verses in the entire Bible are wrong, or the Bible is so ridiculously unclear that it might as well be an ink blot test. In both cases, we can't trust Jesus (John 3:12).
Furthermore, Theistic Evolution says a lot about the character of God. After God created man, He declared His creation "very good". Deuteronomy 32:4 further tells us that God's work is perfect. If Genesis is historical narrative, this makes sense. If, however, Evolution is true, we are dealing with a God so inexplicably grotesque that even Allah, who according to Qur'an 3:31-32 does not love non-Muslims, still has more love than him.
Possible interjection: Criticising God based on moral premises is circular reasoning.
Easy answer: Since we are all discussing the Christian God, we can use Christian morality to refute false pictures of Him. The fact that our God would find Evolution horrific is proof that He couldn't have used it.
I want you to think about how Evolution works. Evolution, of course, depends on death. And how that death occurs doesn't matter. It can be quick and painless, or it can be horrifically brutal, long, and drawn out. Fossil evidence even shows that cancer existed in dinosaurs. So, I want you to imagine God looking out over a bloodstained planet filled with violence, pollution, and cancer and saying "behold, it is very good". If you think He would do this, go to the local hospital and make such a proclamation! "Hey, you people dying of cancer, what's happening to you right now is very good!" Or look at anyone who has ever been attacked by an animal and survived. Do you think they would say it is very good?
The truth is, God calls death an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). As if we needed the Bible to tell us that, but apparently, we as a species are so daft, God Himself must state the obvious, and even then we won't believe Him. But He has, indeed, stated the obvious: Death is an enemy. It is not "very good".
And so that leaves us with the question of where it came from. If it wasn't a part of God's very good creation, yet it is currently a part of that creation, what happened? It is significant that the answer can be found extremely early in the Bible. Genesis chapters 1-11 tell us everything we need to know about the state of our creation, and in my experience, no printed Bible ever takes more than 8 pages to present these chapters. One has to wonder why it is so difficult for a Christian to just read these and see why Evolution doesn't fit Christianity.
The answer to the origin of death can be found in Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve, who were created very good, did something very bad. God gave them a command and said they would die if they broke it. They broke it, and so true to His word, God cursed the entire creation (Romans 8:22) with death. Mankind, the beasts of the field, the very ground, all of these were cursed after Adam ate the forbidden fruit.
But if Evolution is true, that isn't. And so, as Frank Zindler said, "The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity." (2)
And if Evolution was true, he wouldn't be wrong. Evolution, if it was true, would destroy the foundation of the faith, and give atheists an excuse to explain how the world came to be without God. Think about it: Do they credit God for gravity? For the weather? For the so-called "miracle of childbirth"? Of course not! To an atheist, God is just a footnote in these things. If He exists, there is no need to add Him to any natural phenomena because we can explain them without Him. So if Evolution was true, not even origins would require God.
Thankfully, Evolution is not true. It is not true scientifically, it is not true historically, it is not true philosophically, Evolution is an absolute joke. In fact, I like to joke that one of the greatest arguments for Creationism is that of all the alternatives atheists could have come up with, they chose Evolution. The thing I find so unfathomable is that so do many Christians. As Christians, we believe in many things that actually are unscientific. We believe Moses parted the red sea. We believe Elijah called fire down from Heaven. The cornerstone of our faith is that a man rose from the dead. Do we think these things are scientific? No, by definition, they are miraculous. If we are willing to believe the Bible when it speaks of unscientific things, why do we side with atheists when they speak of unscientific things? Theistic Evolution is one of the most inconsistent heresies on the planet.
References
1. Lewontin, Richard - Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, 9 January 1997
2. Zindler, Frank - American atheist, in a debate with William Craig, Atheism vs Christianity, Zondervan, 1996