the7ones.comThe Bible & Evolution: Can we believe both?
One of the most dangerous things Christians can do is to try to make the Bible conform to the will of the world. One area we see this happening is in evolutionary theory and the fact that there are a lot of religious people, including Christians, who are being swayed by the idea that, “I can believe in the Bible and evolution too!” Some believe that perhaps God used evolution to bring about His creation.
However, if we look at plain statements and logical concepts contained in God’s word, we see that this concept is not true, and that a literal six-day creation by God is the only sound way to interpret the account of creation in Genesis, leaving no room at all for man’s theory of evolution.
A well-known atheist, Charles Smith, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, once said, “Evolution is atheism!”
There is no way to put it any simpler. The theory of evolution itself counts on processes, happening by chance, that exclude the intervention of a Creator. The sole purpose of the theory of evolution is to explain the existence of God’s creation, without including the existence of a Creator. Because this is the intent and purpose of evolutionary theory, there is no way that evolution and the Bible can be in harmony.
Aside from the plain, literal reality of the Genesis account, there are two simple arguments that make harmony between Genesis and evolution impossible. We will examine these arguments below.
Bible says creation in literal, 24-hour days
Our first argument centers around the length of the creation days in Genesis chapter one. According to interpretative features built into the Bible, the days of creation in Genesis chapter one are actual 24-hour time periods. Therefore, since the theory of evolution requires millions of years for man to evolve, evolution and Genesis are not in harmony.
First, let’s define the term “evolution.” Evolution is the theory that life can arise from non-life, and that through mutations over millions of years all life as we know it evolved from common origins, ie a hypothetical “genesis cell” somewhere in time.
If evolution is a religion, then time is its god. There is no measurable proof whatsoever that evolution takes place, and many scientists are exercising faith when they take it for granted. It is a theory based on opinions and guesses, not from observations of the natural world. The chance that life would arise by pure chance from non-living matter is so close to zero, that evolutionary theorists must resort to saying that “given enough time, ANYTHING can happen!” So therefore, in order for evolutionary theory to gain any momentum at all, there must be millions and billions of years available to work with.
Unfortunately for evolutionary theorists, the Bible does not allow for this amount of time.
I remain thoroughly convinced that the Bible serves to interpret itself. And I believe God knew there would be a controversy over the amount of time it took Him to create the universe, so He left us a built-in interpretation of the “days” used in Genesis chapter one:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” — Exodus 20:8-11 (NASB)
This seems to be a very simple statement, declaring the fact that God made the earth and everything in it in six days. But are these literal days, or can they be interpreted as “ages,” as some want to do?
Admittedly, the Hebrew “yom” can in some instances refer to an undetermined amount of time, or an age. According to the New American Standard concordance, the word “yom” is translated 8 times as “age,” 1 time as “period,” 10 times as “year.” But “yom” is translated “day” 1,115 times! Or as “days” 635 times.
But thankfully God tells us exactly how long those days were by two methods.
First, Exodus 20:8-11 compares the Lord’s seven days of Genesis to the days of the week. If a word translation fits the context, we should be able to insert that word into the sentence and have it make sense. Try inserting the word “age” or “ages” into Exodus 20:8-11 everywhere it says “day” or “days” and see if it makes sense!
Second, the Genesis creation account has another built-in interpretation method. Each day of creation is concluded with the thought, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” For instance, Gen. 1:5. Are ages divided into “evenings” and “mornings?”
To say that God didn’t know best how to tell us He created the world in long ages is not giving God enough credit. He knew exactly how to tell Abraham that his offspring would be innumerable:
“I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.” — Genesis 3:16
Why didn’t He use such a statement about the “ages” of creation? Instead, however, He used the word “yom,” most often translated as day, and correlated with Exodus 20:8-11 shows clearly what the “day” was.
Man created in God’s image
Our second simple argument centers around the fact that God created man in His image, Gen. 1:27. Because the Bible says God created man in His image on the sixth day, evolution-Genesis harmony is not possible. For evolution and Genesis to agree, one would have to admit that either ALL creatures are created in the image of God (which is against the Genesis account), or that there were no females for millions of years until Adam “evolved” and God took his rib! (Gen. 2:21,22) Where were the female “proto-humans?” Did only Adam evolve over millions of years, then we finally get a woman? Or did God take a “rib” out of a single-celled organism? Or the first mammal? With this type of questioning, nothing makes sense except that God created humans instantaneously on the sixth day of creation.
Conclusion
Because evolution depends on millions of years’ worth of time, and because God created man in His own image on the sixth day of that creation, evolutions will be forever in conflict with the Genesis account. Evolutionary processes, even if valid, could not happen in six days, as most scientists describe them as happening without intervention from a Creator. Even scientists will tell you evolution couldn’t have happened in six days. For these reasons, evolution is evolution, creation is creation, and never the twain shall meet.
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