Evolution Versus The Bible

Evolution is not really a science at all; it is a philosophy or an attitude of mind. Evolutionists admit that no one has ever seen any real evolution (from one kind of creature to a more complex kind of creature) take place. Many animals have become extinct within the few thousand years of written records that we have, but no new kinds of animals have evolved during that period. Although evolutionists believe these great evolutionary changes must have taken place over the hundreds of millions of years of supposed earth history, none of these speculations can be proved or even tested. No man was present to observe and record them, so such ideas are entirely outside the scope of real science. Evolution must be believed, not observed. It is a matter of faith, not science.

The Bible, of course, teaches that the work of creation was all accomplished and completed in the six days of the creation week, as outlined in Genesis 1, whereas evolutionists contend that the process of “creation” (meaning evolution) has been going on for billions of years in the past and is still going on in the present. Scripture could hardly be more definite on this point: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. ...And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:1, 3). Similarly in the New Testament, whenever God’s work of creating the universe and all its creatures is mentioned, it is always in the past tense (e.g., Colossians 1:16: “For by him were all things created.”). Note also Hebrews 4:3: “[God’s] works were finished from the foundation of the world.” This biblical revelation is, of course, in accord with the basic laws of science as discussed in the preceding chapter. By the conservation principle, nothing is now being created, just as Genesis says. By the entropy principle, there must have been a creation in the past, just as Genesis says. There is no such process going on today, just as Genesis says.

Although this is the most basic point of conflict between evolution and the Bible, there are numerous others. Most evolutionary biochemists think that living organisms first evolved out of nonliving chemicals in the primeval “soup” perhaps 3 billion years ago, although there is another school of thought that believes life evolved from clay minerals in the primeval lands. Then, perhaps a billion years ago, multicelled invertebrate marine animals somehow evolved from one-celled organisms in the ocean. Eventually marine vertebrates (fish) developed, then amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, in order. Finally, perhaps 2 million years ago, man (at the stage of the genus Homo) evolved from some as-yet-uncertain “hominid” ancestor. This account is essentially the current evolutionary scenario advocated by most evolutionary biologists and paleontologists today

But that order of events does not correspond at all to the order in Genesis. The latter indicates that all land plants, including even fruit trees, were made on the third day, whereas marine organisms were not created until the fifth day of creation week. (Evolutionists say that land plants, especially fruit trees, evolved long after fish and other marine animals.) The Bible also states that the birds were made at the same time as the fish. According to Scripture, the “creeping things” (a term that includes insects according to Leviticus 11:20-23) were among the last things created (Genesis 1:25) just before man; but insects evolved very early according to evolutionary paleontologists.

The sun and moon, according to Genesis, were not made until the fourth day, halfway through the creation period. Not only is that contrary to evolutionary geology, but such an order would be completely lethal to the vegetation created on the third day, if the days were longer than twenty-four hours. There are many other contradictions between the order of creation in Genesis and the order of evolution in historical geology.

The so-called “day-age theory” attempts to equate the geological ages with the creation week of Genesis, but there are too many flagrant contradictions between the two for any such device to be acceptable to one who has not already placed an unyielding faith in these geological ages. Although the Hebrew word for “day” (yom) can occasionally mean a time of indefinite length if the context requires, such usage is rare, and the word almost always does mean a literal day (i.e., either a twenty-four-hour period or the daylight portion of that period). In Genesis, the context actually precludes any sort of indefinite meaning. The use of a numeral with day (“first day,” and so on) or the use of boundary terms (“evening and morning”) are usages that elsewhere in the Pentateuch invariably require the literal meaning of “day.”

Conclusive proof that the “days” of Genesis are to be understood as literal days is found in the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment says: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day” (Exodus 20:8-11).

It is clear from the strong wording that God used in this commandment (written with His own finger on a table of stone, according to Exodus 31:18) that the “days” of God’s week are exactly equivalent to the days of man’s week. Furthermore, the word twice translated “days” in this passage (Heb., yamim) occurs more than seven hundred times elsewhere in the Old Testament and always means literal days. It is well to note also that there is at least one good word (Heb., olam) that means “age” or “long, indefinite time,” and this word should have been used in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 if that were the writer’s intended meaning. The fact that He used the words “day” and “days” without any hint in the context of a nonliteral meaning, makes it evident that He intended the literal meaning. If the creation days were literal days, of course, then evolution would be completely out of the question.

There is still another important biblical emphasis that completely precludes any real evolution. The phrase “after its kind(s)” is used no less than ten times in the first chapter of Genesis. Every created “kind” (Heb., min) was to reproduce after its own kind and not to generate some new kind. This does not preclude “horizontal” variation within limits (e.g., the different varieties of dogs or cats or people), but it does prohibit “vertical” variation from one kind to some higher kind (e.g., monkeys to men). This truth is also stressed again in the New Testament (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:38-39).

A person therefore is compelled to make a choice, either to believe the Bible or to believe in evolution. It is impossible really to believe in both, because each fully contradicts the other.