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Can You Believe BOTH the Bible AND Evolution?
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Can You Believe BOTH the Bible AND Evolution?

Today, many claim "You can believe BOTH The Bible and evolution." Theologians often teach that you can believe BOTH — saying evolution was God's METHOD of creation.

   A WELL-KNOWN theologian recently stated, "Theologians today tend to believe that man descended from more than one ancestral species." Another claimed, "We have gotten rid of Adam and paradise." A Belgian ecclesiastical authority added, "The words 'Adam and Eve' have no relevance for me."
   These, and a dozen other top European theologians presented their summary of modern religious understanding of Genesis 1 in the following terms:
   "'Adam and Eve' is a literary device used by the Hebrew editors of the Book of Genesis to symbolize the first human being or beings. Man became 'man' when he emerged from a previous form of biped and developed reason and conscience. Where and how he first appeared is up to scientists to discover, not theologians" (Newsweek, August 22, 1966).
   No wonder "theistic evolution" is so popular! The theologians have surrendered without even studying the facts!

What Is "Theistic Evolution"?

   Evolution teaches that the first life upon earth came by some form of progressive "spontaneous generation," perhaps two to three billion years ago. Thus, evolution is the theory that LIFE sprang from DEAD MATTER — that living came from non-living — and proceeded on an ever more complex chain of life up to man.
   THEISTIC evolution results from trying to fit this evolutionary concept into the Bible account of creation.
   A number of assumptions are made about the Bible, creation and the theory of evolution. The first assumption is that the Bible could NOT be taken literally. The second assumption is that the Bible could not be totally accurate. The third assumption is that everything in the evolutionary theory IS accurate!
   From these three totally unwarranted assumptions many theologians, scientists and laymen alike assume that "Adam and Eve" refer to perhaps a pair of amino acids, amoebae, or, at best, ape-like primates. They allow God to have created something originally. But they teach that God then walked off into the universe and allowed evolution and natural selection to bring the earth and life upon it to its present state. "God merely used evolution as a process of creation," theistic evolutionists claim.
   Multiple millions of churchgoing people actually believe in some combination of evolution and creation. Does such a combination of totally opposite accounts really make sense when fully analyzed?

Differences Between the Two Teachings

   Can the two teachings be combined? Let us see what each teaches.
   First, the Bible teaches Adam, a perfectly created human (Genesis 1:26-31; I Cor. 15:45), was the first ancestor of all men. Evolution teaches that a one-celled amoeba-like creature is the common ancestor of all living plants and animals.
   Second, evolution teaches one species changes into and becomes an entirely DIFFERENT species. The Bible teaches that all change is confined within each kind of animal or plant (the term "after his kind" is found and explained in Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25). Although variety among, say, a dog kind, is large — a dog will NEVER evolve into a horse.
   Third, evolution teaches that life originated by natural laws out of DEAD matter, while the Bible teaches that all original life came from God (Genesis 2:7) by the "breath of life."
   Fourth, the Bible chronology clearly shows this creation of MAN to be only about 6,000 years ago (although the physical earth could easily have been billions of years old BEFORE man). Evolution teaches that first life "struck" about two to three billion years ago and that "man" (by now the definition becomes hazy) is a million years old.
   These are just four of the obvious differences between the two teachings — Evolution and the Bible. One or the other of these teachings is FALSE. Both CANNOT BE TRUE!

The God of the Bible

   Most proponents of "theistic evolution" obviously believe in a God. Perhaps their very belief in theistic evolution is motivated by a desire to "bring God into evolution," to "demythologize the Bible," or "defend God"-in a basically agnostic civilization.
   Many such people have written letters to us with statements such as these: "What is WRONG with the belief of evolution as long as you believe GOD did the whole thing over five billion years of natural selection?" Another writes: "You assume that a believer cannot be a so-called evolutionist and vice versa," and "My biology teacher taught evolution but said it didn't stop him from believing in God."
   Another writer put it this way: "Would you allow God to create animal species by an evolutionary process if He saw fit to do so?"
   The answer to this last question gets to the crux of the whole matter. No man can either allow or disallow God to do anything! God is all-powerful, ruling, and SUPREME — it is not a question of what we allow — but a question of what DID GOD DO?
   If God in His Word declares in bold and forthright terms that He created all forms of life and placed them in a balanced order in SIX TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR DAYS, that is what He did. (Write for the article "How Long Were the Days of Creation?") To believe that God claimed to create in ONE way and actually DID the total opposite is to believe in a God who is a LIAR!
   How can a Christian believe God lied to mankind in the Book of Genesis, then told the truth about personal salvation in the New Testament? The truth is, of course, that Genesis 1 is just as literal, accurate, inspired, and TRUE as John 3:16 or any other Bible verse. If part of the Bible is false, you can safely put your faith in NONE of the Bible. If MAN becomes the arbiter of truth, there is NO standard.
   Besides making God out to be a liar, theistic evolution also makes God a WEAK God. He is capable of creating a "spark of life," or an amoeba, or perhaps a trilobite, but He is NOT capable of producing more "complex" life. Actually ALL life is equally complex, but humans like to think of themselves as physically "higher." Ecclesiastes 3:19 says "a man has no pre-eminence over a beast," physically speaking.
   God can "create" life through a natural selection process — according to theistic evolution but He cannot create life in separate "kinds" and species in six days.
   But has God gone far off? Did He create an early form of life, set natural selection in action, then FORGET about man, turn His back on the earth? If so, did God sit idly by for at least two billion years to see an opportunity to evolve man?
   Those who wish to "do God a favor" by "allowing Him" to create man in an evolutionary process need to realize such beliefs totally weaken God, make Him a liar, exclude Him from dealing in the affairs of men, and totally nullify ALL the words of the Bible.
   Can such a belief in God truly be called "Christian"?

What Evolutionists Say

   Despite the protests of those who feel they can reconcile evolutionary thoughts with the Bible — the very evolutionary authorities they follow DO NOT attempt any such reconciliation. They repeatedly state the contrary: that religion and evolution are utterly irreconcilable!
   Here are a few quotes from the more famous exponents of evolution, although dozens of similar quotes could be listed from a variety of respected texts on evolution.
   Sir Julian Huxley, grandson of Darwin's compatriot Thomas Huxley, has said the same thing on many occasions:
   "In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body.... Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge from his loneliness in the arms of a divinized father-figure whom he himself has created" (Evolution After Darwin, Vol. III, "Issues in Evolution," Sol Tax and Charles Callender, editors, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959, pp. 252-253).

No Room for God

   Huxley has also said, "The supernatural is being swept out of the universe... God can no longer be considered as the controller of the universe in any but a Pickwickian sense... Operationally God is beginning to resemble, not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a Cheshire cat" (Huxley, Religion Without Revelation, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 58, 62).
   Another leading scientist, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, has written, "One should NEVER accept a metaphysical explanation if a physical explanation is possible, or indeed, conceivable." (This View of Life, Harcourt, Brace, and World, New York, 1964, p. 200.)
   The millions of advocates of theistic evolution like to say "many scientists believe in God" or "my science teacher is very religious" or similar statements. But most don't realize that many of the LEADERS of science have no such belief in theistic evolution.

Theistic CREATION

   True science and true religion agree. Evolution and the Bible DISAGREE! But scholars have tried to combine FALSE science (the theory of evolution) with a FALSE interpretation of the Bible. The result has been a "double falsehood" — theistic evolution.
   If both evolutionists and religionists would examine their three WRONG assumptions that the Bible could not be taken literally; that the Bible could not be ALL true; and that the theory of evolution is PROVEN true — the true answer would be found.
   What is that answer? Simple. God created — and suddenly! The Scriptures say "all things... that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible... all things were CREATED by him [Jesus Christ]" (Colossians 1:16).
   For further proof that God is the Creator of ALL life, request our free literature: Does God Exist?, Fishy Stories About Evolution, "Dinosaurs Before Adam?" and "The Worldwide Mammal Massacre."

         
Publication Date: 1970
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