FAITH: Problems with Evolution

John 1:1…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 2:2…The same was in the beginning with God.

John 1:3…  All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.

Ever since Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of the Species, there has been a long discussion about evolution over against creationism.  I don’t expect this treatise to solve an ongoing argument, but I do hope and anticipate that it will make people think a little more and somewhat deeper into the subject at hand; evolution.  While studying and praying, the Lord impressed something upon my mind and spirit that I want to share with anyone who is interested in this subject.  What I will seek to reveal to the readers of this article is what God showed to me on a quiet evening while I was reading the great Biblical book of Romans. 

I want to approach the subject of evolution from three different perspectives: Biblical, physical and spiritual.  This article will, of necessity, be rather extensive but if one is truly interested in the subject at hand, they should be patient and read the whole thing.  In the end it will tie together in a common-sense way which will speak to the average citizen.  I think it would be helpful for it to be restated that the Theory of Evolution is just that…. a theory.  Theories have not been proven.  When and if it becomes fact, then it is no longer a theory.  We should not put our trust in something that is a theory and which remains unproven but only surmised.  Educational institutions should not teach a theory as fact but that is what is happening in our schools and institutions of higher learning today.   

The Biblical Statements

If we are going to put our trust in the words of a book (The Origin of the Species), this writer thinks it should be a book which has authority as one of its virtues.  So, instead of trusting the book of Charles Darwin, I suggest we put our trust in the Bible which has an author we can trust; God Himself.  So, with that in mind, let’s look at what God says about the situation.  The Theory of Evolution has brought nothing but confusion and misinformation ever since it was written.  But the information in God’s Book, the Bible, leads man to wholeness and peace.  As the old saying goes; “A book is known by its cover.” And, God’s Word is known as the “Holy Bible.”

The Bible is very clear in Genesis that God created man and woman, male and female.  We find in Genesis 1:26-27 the basic statement by God about His intention and that was to make man and woman, male and female.  He said:

“Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  Now, for those who believe the Bible and accept it as fact, those two verses should solve the problem of man’s origination.

Jesus Christ believed the statements in Gen. 1:26-27 for He affirmed the complete trustworthiness of God’s Word when He said in Mt. 5:18 that not one jot or tittle shall pass away until all is fulfilled.  So, if the Son of God believed in and accepted God’s statement on creation, that ought to be enough for us.  If Jesus believed in the complete trustworthiness of God’s Word, (and He did) then He believed in the way God created man.

If the evolutionist believes that man came from some primordial “soup” that was struck by lightning, then is he saying that the Son of God came into being by chance.  They are completely straying away from what the Word says.  It says in John 1:1 and following verses, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.”  Then it goes on to say: “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.”  Further along, Paul said that Adam was the first man.  He stated it this way in 1 Cor. 15:45 when he said: “And so it is written, the first man, Adam, was a living soul; the last Adam (Jesus) was made a life-giving spirit.”  So, it is established that God created Adam and Eve.  They did not evolve.  Jesus believed in the creation of man because He participated in that creation of all things.

The Biblical stance on the creation of man is that God made man in His own image.  The word “made” is a Hebrew word that means that something was created from nothing while evolution presumes that there was something in existence that evolved and resulted in man over millions of years. God spoke everything into existence, and it didn’t take him millions of years to complete His creating sentence.  We “make” something from a pre-existing substance and we form whatever we want to make from that raw material.  God took of the dust of the earth that He had already spoken into being, and formed Adam.  His own created dust was the raw material He used when He “made” Adam, a male.  Likewise, He took a rib from Adam from which He “made” a woman, a female.  It is clear that God created and made everything by the spoken word and by His own hands He made man and formed man into God’s own image.  So, the passages I have used, and there are many others, are clear about man’s origination as well as all the rest of creation.  The Bible makes the creation of man all very simple while Charles Darwin’s book confuses the issue of the origination of man to the ultimate degree.  But, just look at what man, who is at war with God, has chosen to believe and teach.  Anyone who believes the Theory of Evolution has surrendered their intellect and reason.  Man would rather believe a lie than the truth.  In fact, he will search out a lie to believe rather than simply believing what God has to say.

So, that’s the first part of this article and it deals with the Biblical statements on the fact that man was made by God and that he did not come into being because of some accident or chance over a period of millions of years but that there was a historical instant when God made man.  Of course, every creature, plant and element of the earth was created in an instant of time when God acted in a creative way.  God covers this statement with a word of His own…. Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning God created (spoke into existence) the heavens and the earth.”

Evolution came from man’s intellect.  These statements from scripture I have employed originated from God.  Now, who carries the most authority; God telling us something He did or man proposing a theory to try to circumvent God in the creation process.  Man wants us to believe something like evolution which sprang from his own intellect. God did! Man imagines!

The Physical Evidence

Scientists say that given enough time, the raw elements could naturally come together to form man.  They propose that many billions of years gave time for man and all other life forms to emerge just as we see them today.  I am going to make a few observations which will show just how ludicrous it is to believe the Theory of Evolution over against what God created.  It will only take a few examples to make it undeniably clear.

Let’s just take a very limited look at the human body.  The human eye is a good starting point.  The eye has several parts, and they are supposed to have come into being by happenstance: by chance.  The eye has a cornea which is a hard substance which is designed bend light and to protect the internal workings of this wonderful organ.  It is clear and round and covers the iris of the eye.  The iris is the colored part of the eye and in the middle of the iris is the pupil where light enters the eye.  This part of the eye determines how much light enters the organ.  It contracts in bright light and dilates to let more light in when one is viewing something in low light.  It’s where man got the idea that he needed and iris on our cameras to keep from over exposing the film or to let enough light enter the system in order to have enough light to imprint an image on the film.  The iris of the eye is told by our brain to contract or dilate according to the amount of light needed.  And the pupil is either larger or smaller due to its reaction to the commands from the brain.  The cornea is responsible for about 70% of the eye’s focusing and the lens is responsible for about 30% of the focusing.  Muscles attach to the lens which give it the ability to adjust the fine focus of the eye.  It all happens voluntarily.  We don’t have to think about the operation of the eye at all.  There is light sensitive tissue on the back of the eye and light is focused on that tissue called the retina.  The macula is the spot on the retina which gives us our detailed vision.  The rest of the retina provides us with our peripheral vision.  The optical nerve which attaches to the retina at the macula carries the image to the brain where it is translated into vision.  But, you must remember that all of this was generated over billions of years by chance.  Yeah!!  Sure!!

While we are at it, lets think a moment about the fact that all of the animals and even insects all have the basic systems in order to live.  From humans right on down to small creatures function the same basic way.  Of course, someone will point out that amoebas and other single celled things operate somewhat differently but we are talking about the basic animal kingdom with which we are familiar.  Think about this: All creatures have the same basic systems.  They have a digestive system, a muscular system, a circulatory system, an endocrine system a nervous system, a skeletal system, a respiratory system.  All animals have a mouth, an esophagus, a stomach and a digestive system which gathers nutrients from food and then expels the waste from the body.  Question: How did all animals happen to develop the same systems for life.  You mean to tell me that evolution with all of it varied possibilities over billions of years just happened to produce all the same systems for life in all creatures whether on land, sea or air.  One would have to abandon all of their intelligence in order to favor evolution over a designed order by a superior being known as God.  I would ask an evolutionist if they were willing to stake their life on the fact that this theory was true.  The odds of things developing the way we know them are so great that we can’t calculate them with accuracy.  I don’t think I would bet that the Theory of Evolution is right if anything at all was riding on the bet.  Just think; evolution requires one to believe that for things to be the way they are that one has to accept that it all took place at the odds of trillions and trillions to ONE. I believe that one who touts this theory has forfeited their intelligence and common sense!  

We have only talked about the eye as relating to evolution but there are many other organs we could mention.  The ear is a marvel of the human body.  It is amazing in how it works with its outer ear to gather sound, its ear drum to vibrate and send the vibrations through the stirrup and hammer into the cochlea which produces the nerve impulses from the vibrations delivered by the mechanisms already mentioned.  Inside the cochlea are little hair like structures which help deliver the sounds to the brain which translates it all into understandable sound.

The circulatory system with the heart, arteries, veins and capillaries is absolutely fantastic.  The veins with their system of valves which keeps blood from flowing back toward the hands and feet and pushes the blood toward the heart and lungs to be oxygenated and then pumped throughout the body are a marvel of engineering. But, you know it all just happened to evolve over billions of years and trillions of chances to one that it could be the way it is and function as it does.

It has been calculated that the chances of a simple organism with only 200 functioning parts would be one chance out of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.  It must be also pointed out that even a one-celled plant or animal may have millions of molecular “parts.”  Want to bet on that just happening by chance?  But evolutionists still argue that it “could” happen over billions of years.

Let me ask a question.  What would an organism do for sight or blood flow or digestion or any other function to develop over the billions of years?  For that organism to live and function it would have to have all of those parts at the same time so that they could function together to form the creature and make it viable.  

At the crux of the matter is the denial of God.  People who ask others to substitute the Theory of Evolution for the fact that God created all things are really asking those people to join them in their lunacy and rebellion against God.  They are really telling people that God had nothing to do with the creation system at all and that the Bible is not true.

The Moral Question 

I understand that this article is very simplistic and committed evolutionists would have many answers to the questions I have addressed.  I am not a scientist but I do have common sense and I use it.  It would be good if the scientists did as well.

So, I have covered the Biblical approach and the physical approach but now I will deal with the Moral Question concerning evolution.

The evolutionist will say that he doesn’t believe the Bible and that we have no proof that it is true.   The Bible is a book of faith. We believe it because we believe God and have a Biblical world view.  Faith doesn’t do away with reason but reason always tries to deny faith.  The scientist wants proof.  All right, let’s talk about that for a moment.  I bring up again that we are discussing a theory…. The Theory of Evolution.  Why does the scientist always want proof but at the same time believes and teaches a theory? Doesn’t make any sense to me!  I also believe that the average person would agree with me.  The evolutionary scientist wants to pass this theory along as fact and can’t do it so they get themselves and others lost in all the probabilities and chances and mutations.  They are saying: it’s true. We believe it and you should too.  Well, show me the facts of it and we will talk.  Otherwise stop teaching evolution as a scientific fact.  Be just as honest about it all as much as you want me to give up my intellect and accept your theory over what God, the creator of the universe, has to say about it.

But, lets ask a few questions about things that don’t evolve because they are not physical.  The moral part of man is something to which the evolutionist cannot speak. Right is right no matter when or where it is an issue.  Society wants to change the definitions of moral issues but that is all they can do; change the definition.  

They cannot change the principle.  Where does the spirit of man come from?  It didn’t just evolve from something else.  In fact, the spirit of man is what energizes the human body which they say evolved.  The body is left behind when the spirit leaves and joins God or enters hell which ever applies to that person.  God knows.  Every person who believes in evolution has a spirit which will, someday, leave the body.  Those people who prefer a theory over what God says will instantaneously know how wrong they have been.   Moral principles such as truth come from God, not some theory.  Man, innately knows what is right and wrong because his conscience tells him.  Where did the conscience come from? Some primordial soup struck by lightning? I don’t think so! What about the emotion of empathy with its innate desire to help another person?  And, then there is love.  It is the most noble of all the emotions because scripture says God is love.  It draws one person to the other with an attraction that cannot be explained but only felt.  Did love evolve.  I don’t think so!  It, like other emotions were given to God’s highest creation, man in order to equip him to live with others and function in an orderly society.  Without these morals and emotions, man would be no more that a highly created creature.

The most important part of man is his soul and spirit.  Did those evolve?  Man has a soul which defines him as an individual.  How he looks individually.  How he walks and talks.  The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice are all evidence of a soul.  Did man gain that soul through the Theory of Evolution?  No!  And the spirit of man; where did it come from?  Well, God said “let us make man in our image.”  What he was talking about was the fact that man was given a spirit.  He is first of all a spiritual being.  Man’s body dies but his spirit lives forever.  Can the evolutionist say that the things in which he believes that were created by evolution will never die?  No.  Everything dies.  Death is universal except for the spirit which God gave man and no other living thing.

As I stated earlier, there will probably be some evolutionist that will try to prove false some statements I have made by appealing to the complicated “facts” to which they will appeal.  But, God’s statements in the Bible are very simple: “let us make man in our image.”  So, He created them male and female created He them.

That solves it for me.  It’s simple.  Not complicated.  God’s creation of all things is right, not wrong.  God’s fingerprints are all over everything.  Evolution came from a book that its author, Charles Darwin said he wished that he had never written.  One final statement: Those who believe in evolution are believing and promoting a theory.  Shakey ground if you ask me! More like sand than the Rock of Ages!

The author is indebted to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) for some of the information contained in this article.  

Reverend William (Bill) Harrell has been in ministry 49 years. He served as the pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Martinez, GA for over 31 of those years. He can be reached at wfh@williamfharrell.com. You can also check out his blog at www.williamfharrell.com