Creation vs Evolution

The substance of a talk given to young people

I. THE very concept of 'creation' militates against the theory of evolution, for creation is an act and not a process of nature. The Bible insists that in the beginning everything sprang into being at the instant of a command: 'God said' and 'there was' (Gen 1; Ps 33:6, 9; Heb 11:3). If things suddenly appeared out of nothing as God spoke and at the instant of command, then all process must be excluded. There is no necessity for God to work through process of gradual development. This even the devil conceded when tempting our Lord: 'If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread' (Matt 4:3).

However, it may be objected that there is evidence of process in the things made. That must be granted, but it serves as no valid objection to the biblical doctrine of Creation. The serpent brought into being in a moment by means of Moses' rod doubtless looked as if it had gone through the stages of growth and natural change: indeed, a scientific contemporary of Moses would have so concluded, but it would have been a wrong conclusion. All statements concerning the origin and development of that serpent would really have been ridiculous. Science would have been confounded before the living God (Exod 4:3; cf. the manna, Exod 16:14-35; the meal and oil, 1Kgs 17:14-16 and 2Kgs 4:1-7; the wine, John 2:1-11; the bread and fish, Matt 14:19). 'One day' the Scripture says, 'is with the Lord as a thousand years' (2 Pet 3:8) and, as the context speaks of Creation, it evidently means that God is able to do in one day what appears to have taken a thousand years to perform and perfect.

II. One of the concessions all too rashly made by certain modern Christians is that the Bible is an infallible guide only in matters of theology. It is said that the Bible nowhere claims to be a scientific text book. The matter is often set forth in this way: the Word of God may teach us 'who' created, but it is outside the province of the Word of God to teach us 'how' things were created. Now, scientific terminology is indeed absent from the Scriptures, but when in the sacred volume there are pronouncements upon matters of science, there is an almost incredible accuracy. Let me illustrate. Certain thinkers in earlier times fancifully conjectured that the world stood on the back of an elephant. Later minds cherished the notion that the world was in the shape of a table with legs resting upon some unseen foundation. Pindar expressed the view that the earth rested upon pillars. The inspired Word of God, as far back as the time of the patriarchs, revealed that 'He hangeth the earth upon nothing' (Job 26:7). The planet home of man for centuries was popularly believed to be flat (I believe there still is 'The Flat Earth Society'!), but scriptures written by Solomon teach the spherical form of our globe: 'He set a compass (lit. "a circle") upon the face of the depth' (Prov 8:27). The ancients believed rather crudely that the stars of heaven were lamps in the great dome made by God. It was not until the appearance of the telescope that man really enjoyed a realistic conception of the immensity of space; yet, in the seventh century B.C., the thought was expressed and used as an argument for God's great faithfulness to His people: 'If heaven above can he measured ... I will also cast off all the seed of Israel' (Jer 31:37). The Bible does not err even with respect to science, and upon the subject now under consideration it emphatically states that each species is fixed and can only produce 'after his (its) kind' (Gen 1:11,21,24). Such statements may be fully trusted.

III. If the early chapters of Genesis are interpreted in a way which denies their historicity, then the great principles of Biblical interpretation are destroyed. These chapters are written, not as fable or parable, but as sober matter-of-fact history and they have a place among the historical narratives of the Old Testament. Besides, the very law of God bears witness to its historicity and exact truthfulness (Exod 20:11); the Saviour appealed to the early record (Mk 10:6-8); and the apostles confirmed the traditional view of the Creation account (2 Cor 4:6; 2 Pet 3:3-6). Once the testimony of Genesis is rejected, the foundations of the whole Bible are shaken (see: Luke 3:38; Acts 17:24-26; Rom 5:12, 14; 1 Cor 15:21; 1 Tim 2:13, 14; etc.).

IV. Evolution attacks the chief doctrines of the Christian Creed. 'In the beginning, God' is one of our most basic affirmations, but this is now challenged and Julian Huxley boldly asserts that 'God is unnecessary', believing that 'the Divine Father' is a conception man had in a primitive state, which conception is to be abandoned by ascending man. Again the Bible describes man at the first as made 'in the image of God', which means that he originally possessed righteousness, holiness and knowledge (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). Man is not, therefore, a victim of nature and earth rising gradually to greatness. He is a fallen creature bearing full responsibility for his present state, and, furthermore, he alone is responsible for the presence of death in this world (1Cor 15:14).

Does the theory also affect the doctrine of the Mediator between God and man? Undoubtedly, for if men arrived by natural stages at the knowledge of the One True God, it is conceivable that men will one day outgrow the conception of God in Christ. Let the thought perish!

'Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I'd call them vanity and lies,
And bind the Gospel to my heart'
— (Isaac Watts, 1709)

V.  Interestingly enough, in a letter to Huxley on August 8th 1860, Darwin referred to Evolution as 'the devil's Gospel'. Evolutionary humanism desperately seeks to usurp the place which Christianity enjoys. It is man's poor and beggarly substitute for the gospel of grace. The treacherous thrust of this theory is to the heart of the Faith. 'We can,' wrote H. J. Muller, 'in securing and advancing our position, increasingly avoid the mis-steps of blind nature, circumvent its cruelties, reform our own natures, and enhance our own values.' That is a philosophy in which man is at the centre; it is a philosophy in which man is able to save himself; it is a philosophy in which man ascending has all the glory. The evolutionary system is the product of a world which knows not God and loves not Christ.

VI. There is a God-made parallel between the natural 'creation' of the world and the spiritual 'creation' of the Christian (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15); for the ways of God in nature correspond to the ways of God in grace. The Christian became a new creature, NOT by a process of gradual  improvement, but the moment the life-giving voice of God penetrated into the regions of the soul; and it was precisely so when God made the world (see 2 Cor 4:6). God acted in the old creation as He acts now in the new creation, and man tries to rob God of the glory in both of these: in the first by postulating an age-long improvement with the theory of evolution and in the second by inculcating a life-long endeavour with the teaching wholly concerned with morality and 'good works'. Even the Christian's experience, therefore, testifies against the unbelieving speculations of evolutionary thinking.

VII. In a scientific work published some years ago the author wrote: 'It is an interesting thought to remember that the earth existed for thousands of millions of years before man came and that it will probably exist for thousands of millions of years after man has vanished.' Evolution leads us to that conclusion, but revelation leads us in another direction altogether. As the heavens and the earth were made for man, they made their appearance at the same time that man made his appearance (Is 45:18. Notice that it was not God's intention that the earth should lie waste and desolate). The same heavens and earth shall pass away when man passes away from this scene (2 Pet 3:7). This means that the history of this world and the history of man began together and will conclude together, 'science falsely so-called' makes no allowance for such a supernatural opening and closing to history.

The prophetic scriptures warn us that the biblical doctrine of creation will be denied in the latter times for, according to Peter, scoffers shall arise, willingly ignorant of the fact that 'by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth ...' (2 Pet 3:5). Through the revelation of God we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God 'so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear' (Heb 11:3). Whatever the strange assertions of science may be, the Lord contends, saying: 'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?' (Job 38:4). God is the only infallible Scientist. Let God be true and let all the earth keep silence before Him!