What Darwin really did was prove the Bible was correct!
And who told Moses what we read in Genesis today? God.
It’s about time Christians stopped attacking Darwin for his order of creation of species – and start telling it like it really is – that Darwin merely discovered an order of creation that Moses already knew 5,000 years ago. And Moses knew – because God told Him.
I posted something a couple days ago about why the Big Bang Theory is not contrary to what the Bible says. Not only that, but scientists are now trying to find a different theory – I believe in large part because too many scientists, who are also Christian, are embracing the Big Bang theory as very much in line with what Moses wrote. In other words – the Big Bang Theory confirms what God told Moses 5,000 years ago!
Now that we’ve just passed another birthday for Charles Darwin, it’s time to look at what he really did. And I think we’ll find it’s pretty much the same. All Darwin really did is yet again prove that what God told Moses is again being proved out by scientists.
Let’s look at the order of creation – from science –
info from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolutionary_history_of_life
| time frame | event |
| 3.6 billion years | simple cells |
| 3.4 billion years | photosynthesis |
| 500 million years | fish |
| 476 million years | land plants |
| 400 million years | insects and seeds |
| 360 million years | amphibians |
| 300 million years | reptiles |
| 200 million years | mammals |
| 150 million years | birds |
| 130 million years | flowers |
| 60 million years | primates |
| 2.5 million years | genus Homo |
| 200,000 years | anatomically modern humans |
Let’s look at a couple notes here –
Plants – The evolutionary origins of the embryophytes are discussed further below, but they are believed to have evolved from within a group of complex green algae during the Paleozoic era (which started around 540 million years ago). Charales or the stoneworts may be the best living illustration of that developmental step.[12] Embryophytes are primarily adapted for life on land, although some are secondarily aquatic. Accordingly, they are often called land plants or terrestrial plants.
So – while plants are listed in the chart as being within the past 476 million years, they actually began to appear as many as 540 million years ago.
Days – While the modern Bibles translated into English speak of creation in terms of days, that’s not necessarily what the Hebrew word means. That word – יׄום – could be a literal day, but can also mean a space of time defined by an associated term. What that means is that while many Christians will argue that God created everything in 6 days because that’s what their Bible says – the truth is, that’s not necessarily what the original Hebrew text said. So while we spend much energy, creating much animosity, and being the subject of much ridicule, because of this point of view – it isn’t necessarily the correct one.
Note – I’m not saying God didn’t do all of this in 6 literal days – He certainly could have. In fact, one of the arguments for abandoning the Big Bang Theory has to do with an issue related to things happening in the universe that give the appearance of operating in a manner where time is sped up compared to time as we “know” it. So the evidence is certainly there for both points of view to be true at the same time (pun intended). I’m just saying – why get away from the real issue – that evolution and creation both say the same thing about the order in which things happened.
So – let’s add the Biblical Creation account into the table –
| time frame | Evolution event | Bible event – based on order of occurrence, not years |
| 3.6 billion years | simple cells | |
| 3.4 billion years | photosynthesis | |
| 540 million years (from notes) | plants | 1. plants |
| 500 million years | fish | 2. fish |
| 476 million years | land plants | |
| 400 million years | insects and seeds | |
| 360 million years | amphibians | |
| 300 million years | reptiles | |
| 200 million years | mammals | 4. livestock |
| 150 million years | birds | 3. birds |
| 130 million years | flowers | |
| 60 million years | primates | |
| 2.5 million years | genus Homo | |
| 200,000 years | anatomically modern humans | 5. man |
So the only real difference is the order of land animals and birds. Having said that – there isn’t agreement among all scientists regarding the evolution path of birds. We really can’t go back a couple hundred million years to know for sure.
Also note – the Bible doesn’t have the breakdown that evolution has, as far as various sub-types of creatures. It was 5,000 years ago.
I think what maybe get’s lost here, besides just the “6 days” issue – is that there was an order given.
The Bible could have said that God just created everything.
All at once. God said – and everything just happened.
But it doesn’t say that.
The Bible says there was an order.
Certain things were created before other things.
Just like what evolution says.
Actually – that’s backwards.
Evolution says just what the Bible says.
It’s almost humorous – what’s going on now with the new theory of the universe to replace The Big Bang. Scientists are now saying that the universe always existed. That it never had a beginning.
So now we have the Bible saying there was an order to the creation of the universe – while science is now disavowing the order they used to be able to “prove”.
What’s next – scientists will insist that the earth, always in existence, was also fully populated with plants and animals for eternity?
Now – with that information as a background, here’s something I wrote back in October 2012, about a scientists in Congress saying that evolution is from the pit of Hell.
Is evolution from the pit of Hell?
This comes from an article on nbcnews.com in the cosmic log section.
There are two paragraphs taken out of the entire video of his speech – so let’s just look at them.
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
OK – obviously no argument from me on that point.
While some will obviously disagree –
rather than totally trash what he says just because of that one point, if you do happen to disagree with him (and me) on that point, I do invite you to please keep an open mind and at least go through the rest of what he has to say.
All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.
Here’s where I may immediately surprise some of you.
To say that “all that stuff” – I believe – is an overstatement.
Saying “all” / “none” or “always” / “never” or “everyone” / “no one” or others words like that almost always leads to trouble. Rarely does everyone agree on much of anything. It’s inflammatory and likely to turn people off before they even get any further. Evidence of this can be seen just by reading the comments posted to this article.
So – having said that –
I also have to say that I disagree that “all that stuff taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory” is “lies straight from the pit of Hell”.
That may be shocking – but it’s true.
I’ll explain more later.
And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.
It’s hard to address this one without first explaining why I don’t believe it’s all lies –
so I’m going to defer this also –
in the interest of keeping skeptics amenable to continuing to read this.
You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old.
Remember in school when we used to have to do word problems in math?
At first – they were simple. There was just the information you needed to solve the problem and they weren’t that hard.
But – somewhere along the line – they got harder.
What I finally realized was the reason they got harder was there was all this useless information. The trick was to get rid of the useless stuff – and just get down to what is the actual question being asked.
For instance:
There was a school bus going on it’s morning route to pick up the kids to take them to school. At the first stop – 10 kids got on. At the next one – 5 kids got on. At the next one – 7 kids got on and one got off because he was sick and a mom at the bus stop said she’d take him home. At the last stop – 8 more kids got on.
At this point – I assume most of you are counting the number of kids on the bus – right?
Well – the question is actually – what color is the bus?
This question works in the U. S. – Because school buses are always yellow. Other countries – maybe some other color – or maybe no standard color at all.
The point was though – all that stuff about how many stops – how many kids were on the bus – etc. – is meaningless information.
The part about the one kid getting off and being driven home by another alleged parent may have gotten some people thrown off just by the thought of that happening. But still – the question was merely the color of the bus.
I believe that could be happening here with his statement that the earth is only 9,000 years old.
Does it really matter how old the earth is?
Is God any different if it’s 9,000 years old or billions of years old?
I submit to you that the actual age of the earth is a question we cannot definitively answer –
although there will be scientists on both side of the argument –
but ultimately –
does it matter?
I have to say –
I don’t believe it does.
It does however serve to divide people on a “fact” that isn’t relevant.
I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.
Uh Oh.
Have I put myself in a box here?
I’d say no.
As with most things –
there are two ways to look at this as well.
If creation in six days is true – the earth – according to calculations I’ve seen from Biblical events would be more like 5,000 to 6,000 years old. Based on the ages that people lived (living longer earlier – and not so long later) and taking into account the flood in Noah’s time – and the number of generations until Jesus’ time –
if we took the six days literally – as he suggests – the age of the earth is probably less than 9,000 years.
Unfortunately, none of us was around 9,000 years ago to verify that.
Also unfortunately, it’s too easy to build a model to explain something –
and then use that same model to prove your assumption.
In any field – that would be called circular logic.
So – let’s take the flip side –
let’s say the earth is old –
millions – or even billions – of years old.
How can that be if the earth was created in six days as we know them?
Remember that part about information that isn’t relevant?
In this case – we may have information that isn’t accurate –
that the earth was created in six days as we know them.
Let’s look at the text on creation in Genesis –
Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Ge 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Ge 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Ge 1:9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Ge 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Ge 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Ge 1:20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
Ge 1:24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Ge 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Remember – the actual question here is whether the earth was created in six days as we know them.
We start off this the first day –
Ge 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
So – we have light and dark – day and night.
But – is this “our” day and night that we refer to today – or was this something else?
That may seem like a weird – or maybe stupid question.
But – let’s look at verses 14-19 –
Ge 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
The sun and the moon don’t come until the 4th day!
This leads to the obvious question –
what’s the difference between the light of the 3rd verse and the light(s) in verses 14-19?
Let’s take a look.
In the first instance – the Hebrew word used for light meant illumination (in every sense, including lighting, happiness, etc.) ((from Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.))
To go with that – the Hebrew word for darkness in that same verse meant the dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively, misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness:
Wow.
That certainly doesn’t seem to be day and night as we know it.
Sounds more like the separation of good and evil – no?
So let’s look at the lights in verses 14-19 –
The two great lights are assumed to be the sun and the moon.
In those verses, the Hebrew word used for light means properly, a luminous body or luminary. As for greater and lesser – the meanings of those words in Hebrew are, respectively – great (in any sense) and diminutive, literally (in quantity, size or number).
This would indicate that the sun and moon – the dividers of day and night – weren’t created until the 4th day.
So – if day and night as we know them weren’t defined until the “ 4th day” –
what does that mean for the earth being created in six days as we know them?
Doesn’t seem like a foregone conclusion.
Not that it actually matters –
it’s another of those word problem type questions.
Could God have done it in 6 days? Of course.
Could He have done it in a time that amounts to 6 days for Him but is billions of years for us? Of course.
Does it really matter? No.
What matters is whether or not we believe that God created the earth.
So – let’s take that out of the question.
Where does that leave us at the end of the first paragraph from the article then?
We started with –
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.
We are now down to –
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
That’s the part I agree with.
Of course – there’s still that sentence about whether everything from evolution is from the pit of Hell. – Which we will return to.
So – let’s continue –
And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.
I put the whole paragraph up here – rather than go through sentence by sentence.
I think there are a couple points to make.
First – to compare the Bible to the manufacturer’s handbook is an oversimplification of what it’s about. It’s not like when we have a problem in life it’s even remotely comparable to looking up in the car manual how to change a tail light when it burns out. It’s tempting to think it might be nice if it was that simple – but it also may be quite boring. Life is a journey for us to go through – hopefully learning and getting better along the way – for Christians meaning becoming more like Jesus. That’s not like popping out a burned out bulb and putting in a new one – like popping out a sinful activity – replacing it with a new non-sinful activity – and we’re good to go.
There’s also the issue of the government.
I suspect that people who are looking for the government to save them are looking in the wrong place. Did Jesus say that He was here to tell us how to run the government?
Let’s look at Matthew 22:15-22 –
Paying Taxes to Caesar
Mt 22:15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Mt 22:18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
Mt 22:21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Mt 22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
Jesus was on the earth during one of the most repressive governments ever.
But – He did not support overthrowing the government –
He didn’t look to the government to save him –
He said Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.
So – while it may be an admirable goal to want to try to run the government according to the principles in the Bible – it’s not really something that Jesus appears to have advocated.
You may ask – what about Jesus being a “King”.
I thought about this – and searched for the word “kingdom” in the New Testament.
In the NIV – it appears 114 times.
In every instance where Jesus is talking about His kingdom – it says either the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.
In one instance – where Pilate as asked to judge Jesus by the Jewish leaders – Pilate asks about whether Jesus is a King. We see the sequence in John 18:28-40 –
Jesus Before Pilate
Jn 18:28 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
Jn 18:30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
Jn 18:31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.
Jn 18:33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jn 18:34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
Jn 18:35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jn 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Jn 18:37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Jn 18:38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
Jn 18:40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.
My kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus Kingdom isn’t here / now.
That’s all He said.
Nothing in there about how the Roman government should be.
Just a simple statement – My kingdom is not of this world.
So – let’s look at part of that 2nd paragraph again –
It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society.
If we remove the part about government – we now have
It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society.
As for the phrase “how to run” –
again –
seems an oversimplification of things.
Here is what Jesus said when asked about the greatest commandment –
from Matthew 22:34-40 –
The Greatest Commandment
Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
This is what the Bible is about – not how to run all of public policy and everything in society.
We are now down to –
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It teaches us
And that’s about it from what was said.
From what I’ve written – I’d add to it to say –
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It
Quite simple –
nothing added –
nothing removed from what The Bible says.
So – let’s go back to that part we set aside earlier
All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.
Let’s start by looking at some of the words here – with definitions and other information from Dictionary.com
Evolution –
1. any process of formation or growth; development: the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane.
2. a product of such development; something evolved: The exploration of space is the evolution of decades of research.
3. Biology . change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.
Word Origin & History
evolution
1640s, “an opening of what was rolled up,” from L. evolutionem “unrolling of a book,” noun of action from evolvere (see evolve). Used in various senses in medicine, mathematics, and general use, including “growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing”
(1660s). Modern use in biology, of species, first attested 1832 by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. Charles Darwin used the word only once, in the closing paragraph of “The Origin of Species” (1859), and preferred descent with modification, in part because evolution already had been used in the 18c. homunculus theory of embryological development (first proposed under this name by Bonnet, 1762), in part because it carried a sense of “progress” not found in Darwin’s idea. But Victorian belief in progress prevailed (along with brevity), and Herbert Spencer and other biologists popularized evolution.
Embryology –
1. the science dealing with the formation, development, structure, and functional activities of embryos.
2. the origin, growth, and development of an embryo: the embryology of the chick.
The Big Bang Theory –
a theory that deduces a cataclysmic birth of the universe (big bang) from the observed expansion of the universe, cosmic background radiation, abundance of the elements, and the laws of physics.
Let’s go backwards through these words –
The Big Bang Theory – If you go back to the very beginning of Genesis – there’s actually no problem with the Big Bang Theory. God said these things – and they happened. In reality – the only real difference is that the Bible says God is responsible for creation – and the Big Bang Theory folks claim to know everything – except who / what started the Big Bang.
Embryology – I wrote something a couple years ago on Which came first – the chicken or the egg? The conclusion – the Biblical answer would appear to be the chicken – since God created the animals and then said Be fruitful and increase in number. And God created man – then said Be fruitful and increase in number. Nothing in there about embryos – so there can be no real debate on whether there’s any technical differences between science and the Bible on this one. The one topic that causes the issues is based on the final word –
Evolution – interestingly enough – if you go through the order of events proposed in evolutionary science and compare them to the order in which the Bible says God created things – they are virtually identical. Like the Big Bang Theory – the only real difference is in who’s responsible for “evolution”. It is random – or is it under God’s control?
So – it basically comes down to a question of who gets the credit?
Essentially – what it comes down to in so many issues is that question of who gets the credit for something.
And that – who gets the credit – is the key to the one remaining sentence from the nbc.com article –
And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.
I believe the implied – or should have been implied – reason for what he alleges is happening is all about who gets the credit.
Once we are taught not to give God the credit for the things He’s done – even if we maintain that we need a savior – that savior won’t be Jesus, the Son of God. More likely it will be another person – or maybe science – or maybe just a life doomed to have no expectations other than to die and nothing more.
What we have now is –
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It
Lies I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory that take credit away from God are straight from the pit of Hell. They are lies to try to keep us from understanding that we need a savior.
And so – there it is.
Science can’t save us.
Government can’t save us.
Other people can’t save us.
But – any lie that will convince us that God isn’t who He said He is –
and any lie that says Jesus isn’t our path to salvation –
that will lead us to only one place –
to the source of that lie –
to Hell.
Conclusion
And that is why it’s so important to recognize Charles Darwin for what he really accomplished. In essence – two things –
- proved the creation, as told in the Bible, is correct.
- got too many Christians side tracked from the real issue – the need for a savior, onto the false issue of whether or trying to prove that what he said was wrong.
It’s interesting – both sides of the evolution debate try to claim C. S. Lewis for their side. What shouldn’t be lost in those claims, is the fact that Lewis converted from atheism to Christianity. Therefore, one should not be surprised by very different views from this one person. Below is an extract from an excellent article on the topic – which takes it’s name from a play on one of Lewis’ books – Darwin in the Dock: C. S. Lewis’s Critique of Evolution and Evolutionism.
Lewis addressed at least three different kinds of evolution in his writings: (1) evolution as a theory of common descent; (2) evolution as a theory of unguided natural selection acting on random variations (a.k.a. Darwinism); and (3) evolution as a cosmic philosophy (a.k.a. “evolutionism”).
As we shall see, Lewis did not object in principle to evolution in the first sense (common descent), although he sharply limited its application in a way that mainstream proponents of evolution would find unacceptable. The case for Lewis as a supporter of evolution in the second sense (Darwinism) is almost non-existent. Lewis was a thoroughgoing skeptic of the creative power of unguided natural selection. As for evolution in the third sense — evolutionism — Lewis respected the poetry and grandeur of what he sometimes called the “myth” of evolution, but he certainly regarded it as untrue.
I think it would be good for us today to realize these differences.
Regarding his thoughts on theistic evolution, we read –
On one level, appeals to Lewis by proponents of theistic evolution are easy to understand. Despite more than a century of boosterism by Darwin’s defenders, many traditional Christians remain deeply skeptical of efforts to mix God and Darwinian evolution. Indeed, according to a nationwide survey of Protestant clergy released in 2012, an overwhelming 72 percent disagreed with the position that “God used evolution to create people.”7
The skepticism of theistic evolution by many Christians is fueled by leading theistic evolutionists who challenge Biblical authority, dismiss the historicity of the Fall, and even deny that God specifically directs the evolutionary process.
That last sentence seem most unfortunate.
Speaking for myself – I don’t challenge Biblical authority. However – I do believe that deciding God and evolution are mutually exclusive – based on the thoughts of obvious heretics – is putting limits on God, and for a really bad reason.
If we go back and look at the word evolution, there’s nothing that would exclude God doing something like what the word meant. It was an “unrolling”. That’s it. No philosophical implications of any kind. Neither for nor against the concept of God.
In fact – if we look at Darwin’s use of the word – or rather non-use, of the word evolution, we saw –
Charles Darwin used the word only once, in the closing paragraph of “The Origin of Species” (1859), and preferred descent with modification, in part because evolution already had been used in the 18c. homunculus theory of embryological development (first proposed under this name by Bonnet, 1762), in part because it carried a sense of “progress” not found in Darwin’s idea.
Darwin didn’t want to use the word evolution because it carried a sense of progress!
Progress in inherently problematic with a theory based on randomness.
Progress implies control. Otherwise one would expect both progressive and regressive changes.
Control required a controller – God.
Therefore – the word evolution – as it used to be used – requires God!
One more time –
Evolution requires God!
The only solution to that problem was to redefine evolution.
While Darwin refused to do that – others did it for him.
Again we see – the only thing Darwin really did was prove that creation – as told in the Bible – is correct.