Evolution and the Bible: Can They Co-exist?

Today is the so-called Evolution Sunday, a day which hundreds of pastors from hundreds of churches will honor in remembrance the birth of the “Father of Evolution,” Charles Darwin.

But, can the Bible and evolution peacefully co-exist? According to over 10,000 clergy across the United States, “the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist.”

Michael Zimmerman, dean of the college of letters and science at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, organized the Evolution Sunday observance, which calls pastors to oppose the teaching of intelligent design in school also, apparently, acknowledges the validity of evolution as one of the “discoveries of modern science.”

Says Zimmerman, “When these largely conservative, fundamentalist voices loudly proclaim we must choose between religion and evolution, that is false. You don’t have to choose between them.”

To eliminite the choice is to muddy the waters beyond recognition. If the Bible is true, evolution is a myth. If evolution is true, the Bible is a myth. There is no middle ground unless evolution and the Bible are first compromised to create one.

Says King Jesus, “The one not being with Me is against me” (Luke 11:23, LITV).

And what does our precious Lord say about Creation? In teaching on marriage, Jesus appeals to the fact that in the beginning the Father made mankind as male and female, quoting from Genesis 1:27 in reference to Adam and Eve.

However, evolution teaches that “in the beginning” there was no life, let alone male and female. Even after life arose, it wouldn’t be millions of years before there were males and females, as single cellular microbes are asexual, without gender.

So, is Jesus Christ a liar in affirming that in the beginning, God created humanity male and female? Or is evolution right in saying that humanity simply evolved over countless eons and by random chance ended up with male and female sexes?

Today, “Evolution Sunday,” churches trample under foot the words of the Bible, relegating it to the realm of mythology or allegory. Today, churches choose to follow the words of man rather than the words of God.

But, “Let it not be! But let God be true, and every man a liar; even as it has been written, ‘That You should be justified in Your words, and will overcome in Your being judged'” (Romans 3:4, LITV).

My brethren, if your church is inviting in the lies of mankind to replace the living word of God, it would be in your greatest interest to stand firm in the word of God. Show your pastor where he is wrong, and if after the first or second admonition, reject him. Find a new church, one where the Holy Bible is believed. Don’t allow swine to trample over the life-giving pearls of Holy Scripture.

(Source of non-Bible quotes: Pastor: Bible and Evolution Can Co-Exist)

5 thoughts on “Evolution and the Bible: Can They Co-exist?”

  1. The (in Australia it is rare to have more than a couple of professors per department) Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University, Dr Neil Omerod, had something to say on the intelligent design “debate” that’s been raging lately.

    However, if by intelligent design they mean that God is an explanation for the normal course of events which would otherwise lack scientific explanation, then this is opposed to a traditional Christian understanding of divine transcendence. In seeking to save a place for God within the creation process, the promoters of intelligent design reduce God to the level of what the early theologian Thomas Aquinas would call a “secondary cause”.

    Do they think that God is not intelligent enough to use statistical causation? If we allow that God is more intelligent than us, then the whole basis of intelligent design is undermined. It is an unnecessary hypothesis which should be consigned to the dustbin of scientific and theological history.

    sourced from smh.com.au, an interesting read

  2. Replacing Intelligent Design with Theistic Evolution doesn’t help the matters. To attribute the Creation of humanity to anything other than a single act of God involving nothing more than His Word, His breath, some clay, and a single day falsifies or otherwise renders meaningless every single word of Scripture. If Genesis 1 is a lie, the foundation of biblical truth is removed and the whole structure collapses.

    Thus it becomes very clear why there are Christians who fight so hard to maintain a literal six-day Creation. :)

  3. If the text is written to be taken literally and leaves no room for a figurative meaning, then yes, I believe it should be taken literally.

    If you take out the six days of Creation, then there is no longer any basis for a six day work week, as Exodus 20 sets forth. There is no longer any basis for a seventh day of rest.

    If Adam & Eve are gone, so is the “First Adam” / “Last Adam” comparison between Adam and Jesus. If Adam & Eve were not the parents of all humans, how is it that all of humanity are under the curse? If the fall is not literal, then salvation is meaningless for there is nothing to be redeemed from.

    Likewise, if Adam and Eve did not exist, we can toss marriage out the window as well, and we might as well allow homosexual marriage in its place just for the fun of it. Christ quoted the events of Genesis as if they were factual (He would know; He was there), and used them as a basis to teach on marriage.

    But throughout the entirety of Scripture, no hint is given as to Genesis being figurative. It is taken as historical fact throughout.

    I can only help but wonder, since we are given geneaologies from Christ all the way back to Adam and even to God by means of Creation, at what point does it stop being truth and start being factual?

    And for that matter, if we can relegate Genesis 1-3 to the realm of figurative speech, what is to stop us from doing the same to the remaining portion of Scripture? And who then defines what the figures actually means? Is there yet another authoritative source which defines for us what the Bible (which is supposed to be authoritative) actually says?

    Honestly, it’s either literal or it’s meaningless, and that isn’t he result of weak faith. Weak faith trusts the Bible so loosely that it is willing to let it be molded to fit the current trends in the scientific community. Strong faith stands for what the Bible says even when everyone else is crying out that it is wrong, but they only do so because there is no light in them.

  4. It should also be noted that to insert billions of years or evolution into Genesis 1 in a way which changes the plain meaning of the text is to violate the principle of Sola Scriptura. If the Bible is to be our sole rule of faith and practice, it is not subject to outside information and interpretation as such would make the Scriptures subject to something else, rather than everything else being subject to the Scriptures.

  5. Rick, acknowledging Genises as a non-literal guide does in no way undermine Christ, unless the basis of your faith is weak. The theory of evolution (where theory is defined as it is under the rigorous proof system of science, and not the layman’s term for it) does not proclude in any way the existance of a supreme being at the center of the initial ‘spark’. Science likewise does *not* attempt to determine “other worldly” phenomenon, such as a supreme being, since there is no way to conduct a scientific proof of a hypothesis on the topic.

    You believe that if something cannot be interpreted literally it is a lie?

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