The Theory of Evolution and the Bible
Is there some common ground with the Bible and the Theory of Evolution? As with all science Evolution has some truth in it, after all it was developed by very intelligent people and is still supported to this day by some of the most intelligent people studying the natural world. However, does what the Theory of Evolution teach contradict what the Bible teaches? And can the scriptures disprove its assertions about how life developed?
Some Christian groups wage a virtual crusade against Evolution. They spend a great deal of their time and money coming up with what they claim are scientific explanations which are supposed to prove Evolution wrong. Their new scientific explanations also commonly require a new reading of the scriptures in order for them to also conform to these ideas. Yet it’s not necessary to go to these lengths, nor to spend too much time or energy (or to even have half the intelligence of a brilliant scientist) to understand the basic concepts of Evolution and where such ideas contradict the Bible.
The basic tenets of Evolution are clearly observable information, which, because they are obvious in themselves, are not anti-biblical. The problem with Evolution is not what we can clearly see with our eyes, it’s what scientists conclude about these characteristics of life and how they claim that they form into patterns of life. Scientists then make extrapolations on how these patterns would have worked when projected back into the depths of time.
What this article will do is to distinguish between the living obvious information of the natural world collected by scientists and the ideas that they develop about how these facts form into a pattern of life which is the basis of the Theory. Once this distinction is made clear it will be obvious that there is no contradiction between how life is shown to work from the living examples and how the Bible tells us it works.
The Theory of Science
Science is supposed to work by collecting observable information, which are then collated, and then an idea is suggested as to how the various elements of the information is related to each other in some form of pattern. This idea is called an hypothesis. Other scientists then try to disprove this hypothesis. If after a period of time and tests the hypothesis is not satisfactorily disproved then this hypothesis is granted the new and higher status of a Theory. Scientists call their most important ideas a ‘Theory’ rather than a ‘truth’ or a ‘fact’ as they have sufficient wisdom to understand that what they know is never the whole truth, therefore any idea can always be added to and subtracted from. In contrast, if something were to be called a fact then it could not be changed or amended as a fact is something that is always true. The Theory of Evolution has certainly changed over time and evolved (so to say) as more evidence to support, confront and amend its basic collection of knowledge has come to light.
There is however no need to go into any great detail about this Theory. It’s simple enough to show where the clear line is between the observable information that it’s based on, which doesn’t contradict the Bible, and those ideas and concepts which do not agree with the Bible.
The information on which the Theory of Evolution was originally based is what would seem today to be rather obvious. However when it was collected by Charles Darwin it caused a great storm of debate as nobody had collected so much information about the variation within species before. While it was obvious at the time that species such as dogs, cats and horses can significantly vary within their species, the exact process of how that change came about had never been suggested or agreed upon before. Nor had it been shown that any change could happen “naturally”, that is without the intervention of human breeders.
When Darwin showed that there was incredible diversity within Galapagos tortoises and finches in just a few of the Galapagos Islands, he postulated that these changes would have taken place not from God creating them differently, as was supposed by Biblical scholars of his day, but by natural pressures selecting various traits that gave them advantages.
This idea is called natural selection. Evolution claims that some tortoises with long necks in one island dominated as the most succulent plants on the island were high up, while on other islands most plants grew lower down and the longer neck tortoises had no advantages and therefore did not dominate. Similarly with finches; birds with shorter beaks were able to dominate some habitats that provided food easier for them to get to than birds with more cumbersome longer beaks.
Over time they claim that only tortoises with long necks survived on some islands, while on other islands only tortoises with shorter necks survived. When long necked tortoises mate with long necked tortoises then it’s assumed that progeny with long necks will be produced. Such assumptions are not of themselves astounding as anyone who breeds animals knows, and we also all know this from the evidence of our own offspring. There is nothing startling about this conclusion. The main difference between the human controlled breeding of animals and the process observed by Darwin is that it occurred naturally, hence Natural Selection as opposed to Human Selection.
Darwin then claimed that the interbreeding amongst the limited diversity of tortoises and finches that remained on the islands produced progeny with unique characteristics that the other tortoises or finches on the other islands did not have. This again is not all that difficult to believe if you look at the variations in dogs and cats. There are many with squashed faces like the Pug or Bull Dog and others with long faces like the Collie. Such unique characteristics have been deliberately or accidently caused by selective breeding.
What Natural Selection states from the above evidence is that over a long period of time when one island of birds or tortoises is isolated from another island those animals on the various islands may became very distinct. Again this is a reasonable assumption that it could happen. We have evidence of human induced selection of animals. What is to say that a natural process of selection could not happen?
Natural Selection and Noah
Natural selection was the first evidence that the diversity within living things was able to change over time without any apparent direct input from the Creator or from people. Of itself there is nothing anti-biblical about this statement. We can see that within our own bodies is the capacity to change according to the prevailing conditions. Anyone who lives in a cold climate knows that you’ll adapt to it over time. If then you go and live in a warm climate you’ll feel much hotter than the locals who have adapted to that temperature. What Darwin showed was that this trait of adaptation, at least within animals, was significant enough to change the animals’ form and colour and structure.
Biblical scholars in the 1830’s thought God had created all diversity within the living world and that nothing could ever change that. They were wrong, and they did not like any challenge against their ideas. They wrongly assumed that such evidence was an attack on the Bible, yet the Bible tells us that the animals went in “two by two” into Noah’s Ark. Yet we know that there are many more than two sorts of dog or cat or finch or tortoise. The size of the Ark would have been astronomical if all varieties of all species were to be collected by Noah. Yet if a pair of dogs was taken on the Ark, and they then evolved according to the environmental conditions or human selection (from Huskies in the Arctic, to Whippets in the warm climates), then that would be more logistically possible to fit on the Ark. Similarly with the human body. It’s obvious that dark skinned people mostly live in the hot climates, while white skinned individuals mostly live in the cooler areas. We are all human but only eight people came out of the Ark and there is nothing to say they were all different colours!
We have clear evidence that individual species can change and develop over time according to the environmental conditions. Why therefore should we ascribe to God what could possibly happen naturally?
Diversity in Species
It seems logical that God could create a “basic finch” with all the potential diversity within it and that the selection process of the pressures of the natural environment could cause diversification within that species. This would certainly concur with chapter 1 of Genesis where God made all the birds after their own kind. There is therefore no real contradiction with the Bible on this particular element of the Theory of Evolution.
The process of Natural Selection could diversify the character traits of a basic species. Such diversity has certainly been shown to change the “basic animal” to such an extent that they are not able to naturally breed in a wild situation. In cattle breeding, large breeds such as Brahman are artificially crossed with smaller breeds such as the Jersey Cow to produce a meat and milk animal. However the small females have great difficulty giving birth naturally. They most often need to have a caesarean as their birth canal is simply not large enough for the bigger boned offspring. Such unnatural progeny would therefore never occur in a setting without human intervention as they would obviously die at birth. Even so, it’s clear that this limit of “natural breeding” doesn’t mean that the Brahman and Jersey are two distinct species. They are just very different species of cattle. Obvious physical problems of procreation when dealing with great diversity in size within species are simply insurmountable without some form of human intervention to make it work.
Similarly it’s an absurdity to assume that a very small dog such as a Chihuahua and a very big dog such as a Great Dane could naturally breed. The big dog would more than likely have the small one for lunch! Such breeding would never occur naturally, but that does not mean they are two different species. Similarly a human dwarf and a seven foot person would never get married, although they may be able to procreate, it simply would not be logical for this to happen.
The evidence of Natural Selection is that there is diversity within species brought about by environmental pressures. However Evolution provides no evidence that any species has ever evolved into another species. A dog is a dog. A cow is a cow. A cat is a cat. The living evidence is that the species will certainly diversify, and sometimes significantly, but it has never been demonstrated that a new species has evolved out of an existing species.
Going Beyond the Living Evidence
The next step that the Theory of Evolution makes is to take this basic information about how life works today and extrapolate upon it into the past to come up with a theory about how things came to be today. This first extrapolation simply goes beyond the existing physical evidence. It claims that instead of remaining a dog, the forces of the natural world could cause such great selection that it could evolve into some other animal that may have similar characteristics of a dog but would not actually function in the same way. Yet all these extrapolations are assumptions about what could have happened, they are not based on any physical data of what actually happened, nor any any data of what does happen today.
Scientists then extrapolate again on this idea (which is already based on assumptions) and claim that all the evidence of all the skeletons of all the extinct animals demonstrates that they have similar characteristics and therefore must have evolved from one species into another species. When I see a skeleton procreating and changing, then I will believe this idea! It’s just an idea. There is no living evidence. Just because there are lots of bones of ancient animals with similar characteristics does not mean that the only way that they could have existed is by their evolving from one species into another species. There could be other explanations as to why they are similar; perhaps they were all created by the same Creator. Scientists have no evidence against the idea of a Creator, just like they have no evidence to prove that an animal can change from one species to another species. What scientists do have is faith in the hypothesis that things evolved into different species. We also have faith that God created all things, as the Bible tells us.
Perhaps you would like to have it both ways and think that God could create all things and they could evolve as suggested by Darwin? If so there is no Biblical or scientific evidence to support this idea either. If that is what you want to believe, then you will have your faith as your justification, but don’t try to use the Bible to support it.
What Evolution teaches is faith in an idea. This faith is based on what scientists consider reasonable evidence. However there is no living evidence to support such an idea. Christians also teach faith in an idea, based on evidence that we consider is reasonable. What is the living evidence to support the Christian idea? At the time of Christ there were many public miracles to demonstrate that what he and the Apostles were saying was true. There are many people today who will also tell you of miracles that happen to individuals or to small groups of people, and such events consolidate their faith. But raising the dead, healing the blind or lame, or bringing fire down from heaven in front of large audiences is not something we see today. Today we don’t have such miraculous physical evidence.
Christians however believe the testimony of those who did see the miracles (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, Jude, James). We also have the change in our own minds, which the Bible tells us is brought about by the Spirit of God. Our evidence is more about how we perceive the truth about how we should live, through what is said in the Bible. However, the Bible tells us that miraculous physical events will happen in the future at some time, but we can’t see them now. So we must have faith if we are to believe that such things could have happened in the past or will happen in the future.
Faith in God or Faith in an Hypothesis.
There is therefore a clear distinction between The Theory of Evolution and belief in the creation by God. Both require faith if you are to go beyond the existing physical evidence. Is Evolution therefore a religion? Scientists would certainly not consider it so, but that is what it boils down to. Anything that can not prove its ideas by demonstrating them physically is simply a faith. Scientists may think their faith has more non-living evidence than Christianity, but Christians may consider our non-living evidence to be of more quality than the scientists’ evidence.
Christians also have the daily evidence of living the way of life as demonstrated in the Bible through the example of Christ and other people. Scientists also have their examples of how their faith in their knowledge has helped them to understand how things change and grow in life. This is very convincing to them to prove that what they are saying is correct.
If you believe in the Bible it’s easy to disprove the assumptions and extrapolations of Evolution when it goes beyond the physical evidence of living things. But if you don’t believe in the Bible then Evolution may be convincing, as it obviously is for many scientists. It is however clear that when Evolution extrapolates beyond the physical evidence of the diversity of the species, that it does so based on the faith that such extrapolation is reasonable.
Both Christianity and Evolution have their own faith in their evidence, but one person’s faith cannot disprove another person’s faith. The only thing that can disprove a faith is physical evidence, and Evolution simply has no physical evidence to support its extrapolations which assume one species can develop from another species. No matter how logical it may seem to some very intelligent people, there is simply no evidence for these extrapolations of the Theory of Evolution.
The only living proof of the Theory of Evolution is that science has evolved into a religion! When Evolution extrapolated from the simple facts of science (based on what is living today and how it changes over time to the assumption that these changes are the foundation and reason for new species to evolve) what actually happened was science had to develop a faith in its own ideas. No longer was it based on evidence but on a belief. First it was based on facts then it was based on faith.
Today we have scientists such as Richard Dawkins propounding the ‘truth’ of Evolution like some religious fanatic, all the while undermining the very foundation of science: the humility to be objective about the evidence. It’s not a bit ironic that Evolution itself has caused this evolution of science into a religion for it was Evolution that drew the line in the sand in the 1830’s and told religion to get off the scientific turf! Now it’s time for religious leaders to give the heave-ho to science and get it out of being a religion and back to its own turf of objective physical evidence about the physical world.
How Can the Bible Answer the ‘facts’ of Evolution?
There are some questions in the mass of data gathered in the process of development of the Theory of Evolution that puzzle Christians. The main one being the problem of the dinosaurs, and the second one being the evidence for the age of the planet itself. Why did God create the dinosaurs? Is the Earth really millions of years old? The answers are not that difficult. The first is yes God did create the dinosaurs as he is the Creator. As to the age of the Earth we really don’t know how old it is, but some people believe that the Bible provides us with an explanation of how it could be millions of years old.
The problem we have with demonstrating from the Bible that the Earth may be millions of years old is that such an explanation is really not important. God is not out to challenge any theories of man. God’s goal is to change how we live today.
It really doesn’t change how we live today if the Earth happens to be shown to be six thousand years old or billions of years old. The bible therefore does not teach against Evolution, nor does it teach the following explanation of the age of the Earth as if it were the only true or possible explanation. Refuting Evolution is not a goal of the bible. What it teaches is that God wants us to live today according to the example of Christ, which is very simply explained in his teachings. If you therefore believe what the Bible teaches then Evolution is not an issue, it’s simply understood to be another faith. And, as with most faiths, there is a considerable amount of truth and error within it.
We who teach the bible are not immune from error either, as we may also have much error in what we consider to be the truth. Scientists also admit that they may have errors in their knowledge, or they would call Evolution a fact rather than a theory. Humility is obviously essential when trying to find truth (be it religious or scientific).The trick is to realize that we all (scientist or Christian) will never know the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We are told to “grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” We therefore can’t know it all if we are to grow.
The ‘Gap Theory’ of the Bible.
Having given the above caveat let us examine what the Bible tells us about the beginning of life. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” (Gen 1:1-2 MKJV) This is the beginning that we know about, however the words “without form” “empty” and “darkness” are interesting. Why would God, who can create anything, first make something without form, empty and dark and then change it? Surely God could have made it totally finished from day one?
The Hebrew words for “without form” and “empty” and “darkness” are respectively pronounced “Towhoo” and “Bowhoo” and “Khoshek”. These words are used elsewhere in the Bible and according to Strong’s Concordance they mean the following:
Towhoo: to lie waste; a desolation, that is a desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.
Bowhoo: to be empty; a vacuum, that is superficially an undistinguishable ruin: emptiness, void.
Khoshek: dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness: - darkness, night, obscurity.
The above words don’t sound like something that God would have created, and there is a scripture that indicates that God did not create it that way:
“For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:18) The word translated ‘in vain’ is Towhoo, the same word as in Genesis 1:2.
Does this mean that there is a contradiction in the Bible? Not really for Genesis 1:2 does not say that God created the earth in vain, it says; “And the earth was without form and empty”. The Hebrew word ‘was’ is often translated ‘became’. So Gen 1:2 could be translated “the earth became without form and empty”. The idea of the Gap Theory is that God first created the heavens and the earth in the beginning (whenever that was) and then they somehow became void and empty. It is clear that the heavens and the earth already existed at the time of the first day of the week when God said “let there be light”.
The Gap Theory suggests that in-between the first and second verses of Genesis there could have been any amount of time. So… “God created the heavens and the Earth and they became a desert, a worthless thing, confusion, waste, wilderness, an undistinguishable ruin, emptiness, void, and also dark destruction, ignorance, sorrow, and wickedness was on the face of the deep”.
This proposed ‘Gap Theory’ allows a time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 that would enable the dinosaurs and other creatures to grow and evolve and die, and for others creatures to also be created by God and for them to evolve and die also. Indeed, according to evidence found in research on the Theory of Evolution, 99.9% of all species of animals that have ever been alive are now extinct!
While the Gap Theory provides some answers it also raises some other questions, such as “why would God allow such a scenario to happen?” There is certainly some Bible based answers to this issue, (such as the rebellion of Satan may have caused the destruction) but it’s unnecessary at this stage to go into the detail. Suffice to say, God is able to do what he wants and if that involves creating lots of animals and plants that have since become extinct then that’s really not a problem.
The Gap Theory provides a plausible answer to the question about the very long time period that it appears the Earth has existed. Some Christians who don’t like the Gap Theory instead try to explain all fossil life (and the records of them in stone) into a six thousand year period of time. Such explanations involve a significant amount detailed study including massive assumptions and extrapolations on their part. Unfortunately, if looked at honestly, most of their attempted scientific assessment is more controversial than the evidence that supports the extrapolations by scientists who support the Theory of Evolution.
Conclusion
As the Theory of Evolution is frequently a factor that undermines the faith of people it certainly needs to be addressed. What has been proposed by the above summary of the issues is that the Theory of Evolution has some obvious truths that do not contradict the Bible and some other ideas which are clearly not based on living evidence (but is a faith) which contradict what the Bible teaches.
There is no need to go into any debate on this issue. We are talking about the difference between two faiths. You can believe one or the other, it’s up to you.
Post Script
In support of Evolutionary Science and against Religious Arrogance.
The problem in the 1800’s was not the science of Evolution, but how this science affected the some biblical understanding of some theologians of the time who said that God created all animals exactly as they are and NOTHING ever changed from Gods creation. However the Bible doesn’t say this at all. Such a statement is an assumption which some religious people, even today, like to read into the Bible.
The fact that science was able to confront Biblical scholars on their own turf was what really upset the religious establishment of the day so that they came out fighting against Evolution. However they lost the fight and only fuelled the fire that boiled under the cauldron of the Theory of Evolution. This battle between science and religion is a similar confrontation to the 1500’s when both Copernicus and Galileo correctly identified that the Sun and not the Earth was the centre of the solar system. Religious leaders of the day had said that the Earth was the centre, but they had no Biblical evidence to support such assumptions. Some religious people still support this Earth centred idea, and think that they are using Biblical evidence to support it. Just because they think they have the truth about God they assume they have the authority to determine ALL truth about everything!
The great religious outcome provided by Evolution has been to free religion from the arrogance of religious wannabeknowitalls who try to have everything tied down in a neat little package. But life is not like that. Things change and grow and yes they also evolve, and God created it all like that. Life is not secure, and He has not revealed it ALL to YOU, or to your Guru, or to your Church- even if you think you can trace your religion backt o Christ. You will learn what you need to know over a life time, and the next generation will also need to learn it over their life time. And what you learn will be different from what the next generation learns, but it will all be based on the same basic truths, just the application of it may be different in different settings. Just like a dog in Africa is different to a dog in Alaska. Evolution works, but not to create species or truth but just to amend the species and apply the truth in different settings.
