C. S. Lewis’s World War II radio broadcasts came almost immediately on the heels of the publication of The Screwtape Letters. When Lewis’s broadcasts were published as Mere Christianity, he added a footnote on creative evolution which he labeled the “In-between” view that attempts to navigate a path between the religious and the materialist views of creation.
But to be complete, I ought to mention the In-between view called Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution…People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet “evolved” from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the “striving” or “purposiveness” of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then “a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection” is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind “strives” or has “purpose”? This seems to me to be fatal to their view.[1]
In spite of Lewis’s assertions, BioLogos Foundation still attempts to plant one foot in each worldview—the religious and the materialist. BioLogos Foundation did not invent creative evolution as it has been around for over one hundred years. The Foundation merely took it off the shelf, dusted it, adjusted its mechanisms, painted a new face on it, and presented it as a culture-friendly version of creation to a wavering, powerless church struggling for survival in a post-Christian and post-modern world.
Origin of man according to the gospel of BioLogos
In an attempt to weave a path between Lewis’s stark take-it-or-leave-it choice between godless materialism and the young-earth implications of Genesis, the modern proponents of creative evolution introduced a series of options as to how God might have used evolution to create man.
The first option offered by creative evolutionists is to view the biblical Adam and Eve as archetypes of humanity, that is, historical figures chosen to represent mankind living about 10,000 years ago. A second option presents an allegorical Adam and Eve that merely symbolize a large group of man’s ancestors who lived 150,000 years ago. The third option is to treat Adam and Eve’s story as a parable of each person’s individual rejection of God. BioLogos does not bet the farm on any one view as being the correct model for man’s origin but simply “…encourages scholarly work on these questions.”[2] Irrespective of how God may have accomplished the creation of man, BioLogos firmly rejects Adam and Eve as the first man and woman created by God by reducing them to a mere symbol for a larger existing population of humans.
BioLogos staffers such as program director Kathryn Applegate believe that miracles did not play a role in the earth’s natural history but that the evolution process worked on its own without special intervention from God. “I don’t think there’s evidence from the science that He supernaturally zapped something into existence.”[3] But, in its statement of fundamental beliefs, evolution is “…a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.”[4] Other words for providential are pre-ordained, God-given, and heaven-sent. On the one hand, BioLogosians deny God’s interference in the process of evolution. On the other hand, BioLogosians believe the evolution process was pre-ordained to produce a specific outcome. These assumptions raise additional questions for creative evolutionists. Did God just assemble the parts needed, give the universe a spin to jumpstart the process, and then leave it for evolution to work its magic? More specifically, was man created by chance through the highly improbable evolution process or did God somehow rig the system so that man as we know him had to be created in His image through evolution? BioLogosians appear to answer yes to both questions.
In the center of all the speculations of BioLogos, questions remain as to the appearance of three essential ingredients necessary to explain mankind: the divine imprint, freewill, and original sin. Were these ingredients implanted before, during, or after this multi-billion year evolution process? Whenever these essentials were imparted to man, seemingly insurmountable conflicts and problems arise for the purveyors of creative evolution as an explanation for the creation of mankind.
Origin of sin
When, why, and how did sin enter the supposed evolutionary chain of events in mankind’s development? Sinful man is a fact. The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans states that, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23. KJV] For creative evolutionists, original sin refers to the current state of humanity. They agree that all men have sinned, but they cannot answer the question as to when the first sin occurred and permanently infected mankind’s gene pool. Although creative evolutionists claim the sciences of evolution and archeology can provide some insight, they conveniently punt the question of original sin into the theological arena which has many possible answers, some of which they claim correspond to scientific evidence currently available.[5]
Both creative evolutionists and their opponents must agree that man cannot have evolved as inherently sinful. Otherwise, we negate the fundamental belief that there was a point when man was sinless and then became sinful. The Apostle Paul agrees. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” [Romans 5:12. KJV] [emphasis added] If Paul is correct, then BioLogosians must agree that man (and not pre-man) was fully evolved before he sinned. Otherwise, we must assume Paul meant well but got it wrong because he didn’t have benefit of the modern creative evolutionists’ correct understanding that Adam and Eve were only historical or allegorical placeholders to mark the group appearance of our first ancestors. But, if there was not an historical first couple through whom sin entered the world, what then?
Freewill
And what of the appearance of freewill in man, that sure-fire sin generator? Was man given freewill before, during, or after the evolution of man? Freewill can’t have arrived by chance for it is an essential ingredient in the grand meta-story of the creation, the fall, and redemption. Therefore, we must believe that freewill entered man after he was fully formed. If freewill entered mankind long before man was fully man, then so too would original sin have entered. As we have previously determined, that cannot be.
Whether by miracle or through the unaided evolution process, BioLogosians can do little more than say that, “God gave us our spiritual capacities and calls us to bear his image.”[6] It also appears that original sin and freewill must have entered mankind through God’s miraculous magic—or not.
It’s time we push speculation aside and read the words of Jack Collins who leads us back to sanity with regard to man’s origins.
The actual historicity of Adam and Eve is extremely important as a fundamental Christian doctrine…Christian doctrine is best understood as the true story of who we are and how we got to be where we are…It will come apart if we don’t tell the story with the proper beginning…The Bible leads us to expect a special creation of humankind…If we take the idea of a purely natural process from molecules to mankind, then I think that is very difficult to square with the Bible…It might even be impossible.[7]
Creative evolutionists offer only flawed science and no biblical validation for their theories. They must rely on man’s puny reason, speculations as to what the Genesis story really means, and their faith in the accepted fact of evolution. This is hardly the stuff to win over skeptical anti-God evolutionists let alone Christians.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans of the deplorable condition of the Gentiles. Paul stated that even though the Gentiles did not have the revelation of the Hebrews, they were guilty of violation of God’s laws evident in His eternal power and deity as revealed in nature.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals, or reptiles. [Romans 1:19-23 RSV.]
Prior to the rise of humanism (aka naturalism or materialism), nature was viewed as an imperfect imitation of divine reality. However, modern man has been taught that he need only “…to reason correctly upon evidence from nature.”[8] But man’s effort to explain the nature of God through creative evolution is both unnecessary and impossible. It is unnecessary because God’s invisible nature is already plainly understood by man’s perception of the things He created. It is impossible because imperfect nature cannot add clarity to the picture of divine reality as revealed by the Bible. The biblical record brought clarity to nature, not the other way around. This is the fundamental error of BioLogos when it attempts to humanize religion by embracing creative evolution to give a better understanding of divine reality through the workings of imperfect nature.
As was the case in the early days of World War II, the fate of Western civilization in the twenty-first century hangs in the balance. And once again the outcome may be determined by how well we get it right with regard to what Christians believe.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: Harper One, 2007), p. 31.
[2] “Questions Categorized As “The First Humans,” BioLogos. https://biologos.org/questions/category/the-first-humans (accessed December 17, 2014).
[3] Daniel James Devine, “Interpretive dance,” World, November 29, 2014, 38.
[4] “About the BioLogos Foundation,” BioLogos. https://biologos.org/about (accessed December 16, 2014).
[5] “How does original sin fit with evolutionary history?” BioLogos. http://biologos.org/questions/original-sin (accessed December 17, 2014).
[6] “Questions Categorized As “The First Humans,” BioLogos. https://biologos.org/questions/category/the-first-humans (accessed December 17, 2014).
[7] Devine, World, 39.
[8] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 5-6.
