The Recent Creation: Evolution contradicts what we know about the gospel
Read More Looking Up
Read More Upward Glances
The art of disagreeing has fallen on hard times.
Once upon a time in America, people were able to disagree about an issue and rationally discuss evidence for their views. People were able to disagree and still be friends. The Pew Research Center reported in 2014 that political polarization is greater now than it has been in my entire lifetime. Conversations, when they happen, are heated and disrespectful.
It's not supposed to be that way with Christians, though. The mark of following Jesus is not whether we vote Democrat or Republican, whether we're anti-abortion or pro-choice, or even whether we believe in evolutionism or creationism. Jesus said the evidence of following him lies in whether we love one another (John 13:35). When we disagree, Scripture commands that we instruct those who disagree with us gently (2 Timothy 2:25).
To that end, I recognize that good and godly people have trusted Jesus for eternal life without trusting what scripture says about primeval life. These brothers and sisters of mine are my main audience this week. Respectfully, I would like to point out one of the most difficult inconsistencies between the gospel and an evolutionary worldview.
The problem is sin.
So often, a gospel presentation will begin with two verses: Romans 3:23 and 6:23. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," respectively.
The very starting point of trusting in Jesus is the recognition of our own sinfulness before God. We recognize that death is the consequence of that sin. It's a cornerstone of Christianity: sin causes death. In fact, our sinful nature and choices together with sin's corrupting effect on humans and the rest of the world solves the problem of evil. (The problem of evil is the classic tension between an all-powerful and good God and the existence of evil.)
The book of Genesis does not only speak to the origin of the universe, but it also describes the origin of pain and death. God warned Adam about the only sin he could commit: eating from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Having done the only thing God commanded him not to do, God told Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you" (Genesis 3:17). He also told him he would die, declaring, "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19)
The word "ground" there is interesting. The Hebrew word is "adamah," and it has the same root as Adam because Adam was taken from the ground. It doesn't just refer to the place you don't want to drop your food. It is translated elsewhere in the Bible as "land" and "earth." It refers to the very material from which we are made. Creation itself was corrupted to its core by Adam's sin. No wonder we die. No wonder we kill (murder, after all, is the very next sin recorded in the Bible). No wonder the natural forces of the earth — the corrupted "adamah" — are so destructive. But God has promised to redeem not only us, but the whole world as well. The whole story of the Bible is about how God redeems a fallen and corrupted Adam as well as a fallen and corrupted adamah.
On the other hand, evolution as the theory that all life originated from a common, single-celled primordial ancestor depends on death. Successive generations with mutated genetic material diverge into the myriad species we see today as previous generations die. Thus, before there was ever a human who sinned, there was death.
Again, I do not presume to doubt the faith or salvation of anyone who believes in evolution. I have neither the authority nor the audacity. Eternal life depends on trusting Jesus and nothing else, and we all have unresolved, contradictory beliefs tumbling around in our heads.
I only propose to my brothers and sisters in Christ that a persistent belief in evolution not only contradicts what scripture explicitly reveals about the origin of life, but it also contradicts what we know about the gospel. After all, while the origin of life may be auxiliary, the origin of death is central to the gospel.