Evangelical Answers : Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation)

(Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology, The 2009 Gifford Lectures, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009], p. 107.)

Note: See further: “Science Interpreting Scripture: A Case Study (Galileo Galilei and Heliocentrism).”

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.

(Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad Litteram), 1.18.37; PL, 34:260; trans. The Literal Meaning of Genesis: Volume 1, Ancient Christian Writers, No. 41, trans. J. H. Taylor, [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982], p. 41. Cf. WSA, I/13:185-186.) Preview.

Cf. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

Let us suppose that in explaining the words, And God said, “Let there be light,” and light was made, one man thinks that it was material light that was made, and another that it was spiritual. As to the actual existence of spiritual light in a spiritual creature, our faith leaves no doubt; as to the existence of material light, celestial or supercelestial, even existing before the heavens, a light which could have been followed by night, there will be nothing in such a supposition contrary to the faith until unerring truth gives the lie to it. And if that should happen, this teaching was never in Holy Scripture but was an opinion proposed by man in his ignorance.

(Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad Litteram), 1.19.38; PL, 34:260; trans. The Literal Meaning of Genesis: Volume 1, Ancient Christian Writers, No. 41, trans. J. H. Taylor, [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982], p. 42. Cf. WSA, I/13:186.) Preview.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

(Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad Litteram), 1.19.39; PL, 34:261; trans. The Literal Meaning of Genesis: Volume 1, Ancient Christian Writers, No. 41, trans. J. H. Taylor, [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982], pp. 42-43. Cf. WSA, I/13:186-187.) Preview.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

When I hear this or that brother Christian, who is ignorant of these matters and thinks one thing the case when another is correct, with patience I contemplate the man expressing his opinion. I do not see it is any obstacle to him if perhaps he is ignorant of the position and nature of a physical creature, provided that he does not believe something unworthy of you, Lord, the Creator of all things (1 Macc. 1:24). But it becomes an obstacle if he thinks his view of nature belongs to the very form of orthodox doctrine, and dares obstinately to affirm something he does not understand.

(Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 5.5.9, PL, 32:709; trans. Saint Augustine, Confessions, Oxford World’s Classics, trans. Henry Chadwick, [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], pp. 76-77. Cf. NPNF1, 1:82; WSA, I/1:118-119; FC, 21:109.) Compare: ccel.org.

Charles H. Spurgeon:

Two sorts of people have wrought great mischief, and yet they are neither of them worth being considered as judges in the matter: they are both of them disqualified. It is essential that an umpire should know both sides of a question, and neither of these is thus instructed. The first is the irreligious scientist. What does he know about religion? What can he know? He is out of court when the question is—Does science agree with religion? Obviously he who would answer this query must know both of the two things in the question. The second is a better man, but capable of still more mischief. I mean the unscientific Christian, who will trouble his head about reconciling the Bible with science. He had better leave it alone, and not begin his tinkering trade. The mistake made by such men has been that in trying to solve a difficulty, they have either twisted the Bible, or contorted science. The solution has soon been seen to be erroneous, and then we hear the cry that Scripture has been defeated. Not at all; not at all. It is only a vain gloss upon it which has been removed.

(C. H. Spurgeon, The Greatest Fight in the World, [London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1892], p. 31.)

Revere Franklin Weidner:

8. We have heard much in time past of the conflict between Science and Scripture. To speak exactly, there never has been a conflict between them, but between science falsely so-called and theology falsely so-called. The Book of Nature and the Word of God have one and the same infallible Author. If God is the author of both revelations, the truths recorded in these books cannot be at variance, and there must be a harmony between them.

9. The facts contained in these two different records are absolutely true, lie open to an investigation, and are legitimate sources of knowledge, and the truths therein recorded are not affected or changed in any way by our unbelief, misbelief, or ignorance.

10. Man, however, is a fallible interpreter. By mistaking one or both of these divine records, he forces them, too often, into unnatural conflict. As the truths and facts belonging to either domain are by deeper research more fully grasped and more truthfully presented, the nearer we reach absolute truth, and the more harmonious will be the relation between the Science of Nature and the Science of Theology.

11. In this whole discussion we must remember that in the Bible we do not have a scientific treatise. The truths which are revealed in the Bible have reference to our spiritual life, and make known to us the relations of the finite world to the infinite, and unveil to us the glory of the invisible things of God. All other knowledge imparted to us in the Bible serves only as a means to this great end, and we have no right to ask of the Bible that kind of knowledge which it does not aim to teach.

(Revere Franklin Weidner, Theologia: Or, The Doctrine of God; Outline Notes Based on Luthardt, [Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1902], pp. 79-80.)

Lionel Ruby:

The appeal to authority is often called the “Argumentum ad Verecundiam,” a learned-sounding Latin phrase which means the “appeal to reverence.” A revered authority or tradition is often regarded as infallible, so that anyone who disagrees is in some sense disloyal to that which ought to be revered. This type of appeal is sometimes employed with respect to the theory of evolution. We may be told that evolution cannot be true because it is contrary to the story in the Book of Genesis. But this question must be decided by those who have examined the available evidence, and the writers of that ancient book did not possess our present knowledge. Reverence is not a substitute for evidential proof. Reverence was also exhibited by the mediaeval professor who looked through Galileo’s telescope, but who continued to teach the ancient astronomical ideas because he preferred to distrust the evidence of his senses rather than doubt the authority of Aristotle.

The fact that “everybody knows that this is so” is no proof. The masses of men have frequently been mistaken. They once thought that the earth was flat. They still believe that the speed of a falling object depends on its weight. The voice of the people is not necessarily the voice of God on all questions.

(Lionel Ruby, Logic, An Introduction, Second Edition, [Chicago: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1960], pp. 133-134.)

Note: See further: General Revelation (The “Book” of Nature—Science and Scripture).

Note: See further: “Dialogue and the Necessity of Humility and Love.”

1.1. Science, Inspiration and Inerrancy. Return to Outline.

John R. W. Stott:

Scientists need to distinguish between fact and theory, and Bible students between plain scriptural statement and fallible human interpretation.

(John R. W. Stott, Understanding the Bible: Revised Edition, [London: Scripture Union, 1993], p. 48.)

Note: See further: Inspiration and Inerrancy.

Billy Graham:

…I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things that they weren’t meant to say, and I think we have made a mistake by thinking that the Bible is a scientific book.

The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of redemption, and of course, I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe He created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or this being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man.

…I personally believe that it’s just as easy to accept the fact that God took some dust and blew on it and out came a man as it is to accept the fact that God breathed upon man and he became a living soul and it started with some protoplasm and went right on up through the evolutionary process. Either way is by faith and whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.

(Billy Graham, “Doubts and Certainties: David Frost interview with Billy Graham,” BBC-2, 1964; In: David Frost, Billy Graham in Conversation, [Oxford: Lion, 1998], pp. 66-67, 67. Cf. David Frost, Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man: 30 Years of Conversations with David Frost, [Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1997], pp. 73, 73-74.)

Alister E. McGrath:

It was the lens through which Scripture was read, not Scripture itself, that was challenged by Darwin’s notion of the evolution of species.

(Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology, The 2009 Gifford Lectures, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009], p. 107.)

Note: See further: “Science Interpreting Scripture: A Case Study (Galileo Galilei and Heliocentrism).”

1.2. Literary Genre. Return to Outline.

Bruce Waltke, Charles Yu:

Ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies are a very different literary genre from the genre of scientific writings. These ancient cosmogonies—including that of Genesis 1—do not ask or attempt to answer scientific questions of origins: the material, manner, or date of the origin of the world and of its species. The biblical account represents God as creating the cosmological spheres that house and preserve life in six days, each presumably consisting of twenty-four hours. But how closely this cosmology coincides with the material reality cannot be known from the genre of an ancient Near Eastern cosmology, which does not attempt to answer that question.

Recall that biblical narrators creatively and rhetorically represent raw historical data to teach theology.

The best harmonious synthesis of the special revelation of the Bible, of the general revelation of human nature that distinguishes between right and wrong and consciously or unconsciously craves God, and of science is the theory of theistic evolution. By “theory,” I mean here “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for the origin of species, especially ʾāḏām,” not “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural.” By “theistic evolution” I mean that the God of Israel, to bring glory to himself, (1) created all the things that are out of nothing and sustains them; (2) incredibly, against the laws of probability, finely tuned the essential properties of the universe to produce ʾāḏām, who is capable of reflecting upon their origins; (3) within his providence allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions—such as the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the earth—to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially ʾāḏām; (4) by direct creation made ʾāḏām a spiritual being, an image of divine beings, for fellowship with himself by faith; (5) allowed ʾāḏām to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God, losing fellowship with their physical and spiritual Creator; (6) and in his mercy chose from fallen ʾāḏām the Israel of God, whom he regenerated by the Holy Spirit, in connection with their faith in Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, for fellowship with himself.

There is a synergetic modus vivendi in recognizing that both science and theology have a contribution to make to our understanding of the origins of the creation. A scientific cosmogony contributes to answering the questions of how and when, and the rhetorical biblical cosmogony answers the more important questions of who and why. Science points to a Creator but not necessarily the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Science seeks to explain the origin and fate of dinosaurs (Gk., “terrible lizards”); the biblical writers seek to establish a just and moral society under I AM’s rule to his glory. Knowledge about biology including dinosaurs, about physics including the relativity of time, space and energy, and about myriad other scientific facts and laws in our possession would not improve the biblical writers’ aim. The Bible’s message is that the God of Israel created all things and blesses his creatures to procreate and to produce a culture under his rule. This is the saving alternative to the nihilistic message of our age of secularism and its promethean and narcissistic psychological tendencies. In short, render to Einstein what is Einstein’s and to the Bible what is the Bible’s.

(Bruce K. Waltke, Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007], pp. 202-203.) Preview.

Note: See further: Cosmology (As a Literary Genre—Myths/History).

Peter Enns:

We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter, although quickly, in looking at the Genesis creation and flood stories in their ancient Near Eastern context. This issue has profoundly affected how modern readers understand the type of literature that Genesis is and therefore what we have the right to expect of it, especially when the topic turns to the relationship between Christianity and evolution. Although there is no absolute scholarly consensus about how to read the creation and flood stories in all their details, the evidence points us clearly in the following direction: the early chapters of Genesis are not a literal or scientific description of historical events but a theological statement in an ancient idiom, a statement about Israel’s God and Israel’s place in the world as God’s people.

The core issue raised by the ancient Near Eastern data has helped calibrate the genre of the biblical creation accounts. I maintain that the failure to appreciate that genre calibration is responsible for much of the tension in the evolution discussion. The tensions among various Christian groups are basically not driven by differences of scientific opinion. Rather, different interpretations of the scientific data are driven by deep theological precommitments, implicit or explicit, that determine the range of options open to Christians. But a literal reading of Genesis is not the firmly settled default position of true faith to which one can “hold firm” or from which one “strays.” Literalism is a hermeneutical decision (often implicit) stemming from the belief that God’s Word requires a literal reading.

…But to insist that, in order to convey truth, Israel’s Scripture must be isolated from the world in which it was written is a violation of basic interpretive practice. It is routinely understood, even by conservative interpreters, that the cultural context of Scripture informs our understanding of Scripture. Responsible biblical interpreters ask themselves, “How would this text have been understood at the time in which it was written?” This principle holds whether we are interpreting Paul, the Gospels, the Prophets, the Psalms, or the Pentateuch—including the creation and flood stories of Genesis. To insist that these stories must be read in isolation from what we know of the ancient world is, ironically, an argument for a noncontextual reading of Genesis, which is something few would tolerate when interpreting other portions of the Bible.

A noncontextual reading of Scripture is not only methodologically arbitrary but also theologically problematic. It fails to grasp in its entirety a foundational principle of theology that informs not only our understanding of the Bible but of all of God’s dealing with humanity recorded there, particularly in Jesus himself: God condescends to where people are, speaks their language, and employs their ways of thinking. Without God’s condescension—seen most clearly in the incarnation any true knowledge of God would cease to exist.

It is not beneath God to condescend to culturally conditioned human modes of communication. Having such a condescending God is crucial to the very heart of Christianity. True, such a God will allow ancient Israelites to produce a description of human origins that reflects the ancient ideas and so will not satisfy scientific questions. But if we are going to talk about the Christian God, then this is something we are going to have to get used to. What sets this God apart is his habit of coming down to our level. As Christians confess, God even became one of us. Posing such a condescending and incarnating God as a theological problem to be overcome—which is what a literal reading of Genesis unwittingly requires—creates a far greater and more harmful theological problem than the nonliteral reading of Genesis.

(Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins, [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012], pp. 56, 58-59.)

Note: See further: Cosmology (As a Literary Genre—Myths/History).

Note: See further: “Literary Genre (Historiography and Cosmology) and Inerrancy” and “Inerrancy vs. Interpretation.”

1.3. The Nature of Science: Methodological Considerations. Return to Outline.

John H. Walton:

We believe that God controls history, but we do not object when historians talk about a natural cause-and-effect process. We believe that God creates each human in the womb, but we do not object when embryologists offer a natural cause-and-effect process. We believe that God controls the weather, yet we do not denounce meteorologists who produce their weather maps day to day based on the predictability of natural cause-and-effect processes. Can evolution be thought of in similar terms?

It would be unacceptable to adopt an evolutionary view as a process without God. But it would likewise be unacceptable to adopt history, embryology or meteorology as processes without God. The fact that embryology or meteorology do not identify God’s role, or that many embryologists or meteorologists do not believe God has a role makes no difference. We can accept the results of embryology and meteorology (regardless of the beliefs of the scientists) as processes that we believe describe in part God’s way of working. We don’t organize campaigns to force academic institutions that train meteorologists or embryologists to offer the theological alternative of God’s role. Why should our response to evolution be any different?

(John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009], pp. 134-135.) Preview.

2. Defining “Evolution”. Return to Outline.

Ronald E. Osborn:

…“theistic evolution”—or better, process creation…

(Ronald E. Osborn, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014], p. 37.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

I am often asked, “Are you an evolutionist or a creationist?” After a bit of a pause, I answer, “Well, I happen to be both.” A look of disbelief then quickly appears on the face of the person asking the question. Similarly, many have asked, “Do you believe in evolution or intelligent design?” Again, my response is puzzling to most individuals: “I accept evolution and I definitely see the beauty, complexity, and functionality in nature as indicative of the work of an Intelligent Designer.” …given the common definitions of the terms evolution, creation, and intelligent design, my views on origins are contradictory. But this is where I think a serious problem exists with the origins debate today. Most people come to this discussion with black-and-white terminology. The word “evolution” is chained to a godless worldview that rejects intelligent design in nature; the term “creation” is fused to origins in six literal days as found in the Bible. This blending or collapsing of terms into one idea is known as “conflation,” and it severely restricts the meaning of words. Consequently, many assume that there are only two possibilities with regard to origins—one is either an evolutionist or a creationist. This setting up of an issue into only two simple positions is called a “dichotomy.” It forces people to choose between one of two choices, and it blinds them from seeing the wide range of possibilities on how God could have created the world.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], p. 1.)

Cf. Denis O. Lamoureux:

Most people associate the term evolution with a biological theory of molecules-to-people that is driven only by blind chance. This word is conflated with an atheistic worldview—the belief that God does not exist and that our existence has no ultimate meaning or purpose. Understandably, this popular use of evolution produces strong negative reactions within the church. But for some Christians, evolution is simply the method through which the Lord created life, including humans who bear His Image. These believers argue that God employed a set of natural mechanisms for the creation of every living organism that has ever existed on earth in the same way that He uses physical processes to create each one of us in our mother’s womb.

Therefore, there are two radically different meanings of the word evolution, and in order to avoid confusion, qualification is necessary. On the one hand, “teleological evolution” is a planned and purposeful natural process that heads toward a final outcome—the intended creation of life. The Greek word telos means end, goal, or final destiny. On the other hand, “dysteleological evolution” is an unplanned and purposeless series of physical mechanisms driven by blind chance only. According to this approach, evolutionary processes unintentionally generated living organisms, including humans. In other words, we are just a fluke of nature. The term dysteleologie was first coined in German and refers to a worldview without any ultimate plan or purpose. This bleak belief asserts that existence is marked by nothing but pointless indifference with no ultimate right or wrong.

Teleological evolution is connected to the notion of intelligent design in nature. History reveals that the world’s beauty, complexity, and functionality have powerfully impacted men and women throughout time. For most of us, this experience has led to the conclusion that the universe and life reflect the work of a rational mind, thus arguing for the existence of a Creator. Teleological evolutionists contend that the natural processes of evolution also reveal intelligent design. In contrast, dysteleological evolutionists believe that design in nature is nothing but a delusion concocted by the human mind. Of course, these skeptics acknowledge that there is striking elegance, intricacy, and efficiency in the world, but they argue that this experience is only an “appearance” of design, which most people misunderstand and impose upon nature. …caution is necessary when using or reading the word evolution because it carries a number of meanings. The popular use of this term is conflated with an atheistic and dysteleological worldview. However, the professional definition of evolution employed by scientists refers only to the scientific theory that describes and explains the origin of the world through natural mechanisms, with no mention of the religious or philosophical character of these physical processes. In the origins debate, the word evolution often needs to be qualified with the adjectives teleological or dysteleological.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. 3, 5-6.)

Cf. Denis O. Lamoureux:

The popular understanding of the term creation also contributes to the entrenchment of the origins dichotomy. Most people consider a creationist to be an individual who believes that God created the universe and life in six 24-hour days as described by a strict literal reading of Gen 1. In other words, the concept of creation is conflated with one interpretation of this biblical chapter. …care is needed with the word creation since it carries many meanings today. The popular use of this term usually refers to six-day creation, giving the impression that this is the only acceptable Christian position on origins. However, such an approach conflates a strict literal interpretation of Gen 1 with the word creation. The definition of this term employed by professional theologians refers only to the beings and things that the Creator has created, and not to His creative method. In other words, the Christian doctrine of creation does not focus on how God created, but that God created.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. 6, 8.)

Mark A. Noll:

…Warfield repeatedly insisted on distinguishing among Darwin as a person, Darwinism as a cosmological theory, and evolution as a series of explanations about natural development. Of key importance was his willingness throughout a long career to accept the possibility (or even the probability) of evolution, while also denying Darwinism as a cosmological theory. In his mind, these discriminations were necessary in order properly to evaluate both the results of disciplined observation (science) and large-scale conclusions drawn from that science (theology or cosmology). Crucially, a Christological perspective was prominent when he applied these discriminations to evolutionary theory.

(Mark A. Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2011], p. 111.)

Cf. Mark A. Noll, David Livingstone:

Warfield repeatedly insisted on the distinction between Darwin as a person, Darwinism as a cosmological theory, and evolution as a series of explanations about natural development. Of key importance for Warfield was his willingness throughout a long career to accept the possibility (or even the probability) of evolution, yet while also denying Darwinism.

(Mark A. Noll, David Livingstone, “Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield on Science, the Bible, Evolution, and Darwinism;” In: Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, ed. Keith B. Miller, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2003], p. 68.)

Cf. Hans Schwarz:

When we turn to America and look at the Princeton theologians, we notice that the scientific discovery of nature could provide no threat or challenge to their faith. To the contrary, everything discovered in nature could only strengthen their faith.

(Hans Schwarz, Theology in a Global Context: The Last Two Hundred Years, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005], p. 209.)

Note: David N. Livingstone provides a fairly exhaustive primary-source defense of this statement in his book Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders. Cf. David N. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1987].

Mark A. Noll, David N. Livingstone:

…while Warfield consistently rejected naturalistic, reductionistic, or ateleological explanations for natural phenomena (explanations that he usually associated with Darwinism), Warfield just as consistently entertained the possibility that other kinds of evolutionary theses, which avoided Darwin’s rejection of design, could satisfactorily explain the physical world.

(Mark A. Noll, David N. Livingstone, eds., B. B. Warfield: Evolution, Science, and Scripture, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2019], p. 42.) Preview.

David Atkinson:

Clearly, if ‘evolution’ is lifted out of the sphere of biological hypothesis where it is open to scientific investigation, and is elevated to the status of a whole world-view of the way things are, then there is direct conflict with biblical faith. But if ‘evolution’ remains at the level of scientific biological hypothesis, it would seem that there is little reason for conflict between the implications of Christian belief in the Creator and the scientific explorations of the way which — at the level of biology — God has gone about his creating processes.

(David Atkinson, The Message of Genesis 1–11, The Bible Speaks Today, [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1990], p. 31.)

Benedict XVI:

We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God . . . does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the “project” of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary — rather than mutually exclusive — realities.

(Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), ‘In the Beginning…’ A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, trans. Boniface Ramsey, O.P., [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995], p. 50.)

Henri Blocher:

Because they are a minority group, academic: ‘underdogs’, the anti evolutionists’ case deserves a sympathetic hearing. But it appears to us distinctly vulnerable in the way it handles notions and presuppositions. To talk about the alternative as ‘evolution or creation’, as though they were two concepts of the same order, is an unfortunate beginning. Nothing in the idea of creation excludes the use of an evolutionary procedure. Why must we tie God to one single method of action?

(Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis, [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984], p. 226.)

James Iverach:

The issue to-day is, we repeat, not between “evolution” and what our friends are pleased to call “special creation.” It is between evolution under the guidance of intelligence and purpose, and evolution as a fortuitous result.

(James Iverach, Christianity and Evolution, [London Hodder and Stoughton, 1894], p. 104.)

John R. W. Stott:

Not many Christians today find it necessary to defend the concept of a literal six-day creation, for the text does not demand it, and scientific discovery appears to contradict it. The biblical text presents itself not as a scientific treatise but as a highly stylized literary statement (deliberately framed in three pairs, the fourth ‘day’ corresponding to the first, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the third). …It is most unfortunate that some who debate this issue (evolution) begin by assuming that the words ‘creation’ and ‘evolution’ are mutually exclusive. If everything has come into existence through evolution, they say, then biblical creation has been disproved, whereas if God has created all things, then evolution must be false. It is, rather, this naïve alternative which is false. It presupposes a very narrow definition of the two terms, both of which in fact have a wide range of meanings, and both of which are being freshly discussed today. …there does not seem to me any biblical reason for denying that some kind of purposive evolutionary development may have been the mode which God employed in creating.

(John R. W. Stott, Understanding the Bible: Revised Edition, [London: Scripture Union, 1993], pp. 48, 48, 49.)

2.1. Science vs. Philosophy. Return to Outline.

A. A. Hodge:

Evolution considered as the plan of an infinitely wise Person and executed under the control of His everywhere present energies can never be irreligious; can never exclude design, providence, grace, or miracles. Hence we repeat that what Christians have cause to consider with apprehension is not evolution as a working hypothesis of science dealing with facts, but evolution as a philosophical speculation professing to account for the origin, causes, and end of all things.

(A. A. Hodge, “Introduction;” In: Joseph Smith Van Dyke, Theism and Evolution: An Examination of Modern Speculative Theories as Related to Theistic Conceptions of the Universe, [New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1886], p. xviii.)

Timothy Keller:

However, Christians may believe in evolution as a process without believing in “philosophical naturalism”—the view that everything has a natural cause and that organic life is solely the product of random forces guided by no one. When evolution is turned into an All-encompassing Theory explaining absolutely everything we believe, feel, and do as the product of natural selection, then we are not in the arena of science, but of philosophy.

(Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, [New York: Dutton, 2008], p. 87.)

C. S. Lewis:

…we must sharply distinguish between Evolution as a biological theorem and popular Evolutionism or Developmentalism which is certainly a Myth. …To the biologist Evolution is a hypothesis. It covers more of the facts than any other hypothesis at present on the market and is therefore to be accepted unless, or until, some new supposal can be shown to cover still more facts with even fewer assumptions.

(C. S. Lewis, “The Funeral of a Great Myth;” In: C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1967], pp. 83, 85.)

Edmond Dehault de Pressensé:

It follows that theism is completely disinterested in the properly scientific question (of evolution), as moreover it ought to be; for, as we have often said, so far as science contents itself with verifying facts, grouping them together, and drawing from them the consequences required by its methods, it is sovereign. Let Darwinian evolution be demonstrated or not, theism has nothing to lose thereby: let the conditions of existence be determined as we may wish, the question of cause and origin remains intact. Darwinism has been accepted by men who believe in spirit, as is shown by the capital work of Mr. A. R. Wallace on Natural Selection. It is well known that Mr. Wallace, who had arrived, by his own investigations, at a solution identical with that of Darwin, even before the latter had formulated and systematically expounded his view, has not less established in the most categorical manner that natural selection implies finality [finalité, i.e. purpose, final cause], at least as much as the theory of successive creations.

(E. de Pressensé, Les Origines: Le Problème de la Connaissance, le Problème Cosmologique, le Problème Anthropologique, L’origine de la Morale et de la Religion, [Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1884], p. 180; trans. Alexander Mair, Studies in the Christian Evidences: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889], p. 346.)

John L. Robinson:

…The facts of evolution are independent of any man’s explanation of Primary Cause. Science discusses secondary causes. Science tells us what the secondary causes are, and it has taught us many undeniable facts. The great question of Primary Cause is a question of philosophy and theology.

(John L. Robinson, Evolution and Religion, [Boston: The Stratford Co., 1923], p. 156.)

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

Cf. Denis O. Lamoureux:

Science deals only with the laws and processes of the physical world. Scientific methods and instruments cannot detect teleology or dysteleology. Consequently, science is dead silent on the ultimate religious and philosophical character of evolution. …caution is necessary when using or reading the word evolution because it carries a number of meanings. The popular use of this term is conflated with an atheistic and dysteleological worldview. However, the professional definition of evolution employed by scientists refers only to the scientific theory that describes and explains the origin of the world through natural mechanisms, with no mention of the religious or philosophical character of these physical processes. In the origins debate, the word evolution often needs to be qualified with the adjectives teleological or dysteleological.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. 4, 5-6.)

Asa Gray:

We hesitate to advance our conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious consideration, we are constrained to say that, in our opinion, the adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwin’s particular hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final causes, utility, and special design, just where they were before. We do not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we cannot perceive that Darwin’s theory brings in any new kind of scientific difficulty, that is, any with which philosophical naturalists were not already familiar.

Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species—no less than of a theory of dynamics—must needs be the same to the theist as to the atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to the question of primary cause a question which belongs to philosophy.

(Asa Gray, “Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology,” Patt III; In: Asa Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism, [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878], p. 145.)

Asa Gray:

But is it a teleology, or rather—to use the new-fangled term—a dysteleology? That depends upon how it is held. Darwinian evolution (whatever may be said of other kinds) is neither theistical nor non-theistical. Its relations to the question of design belong to the natural theologian, or, in the larger sense, to the philosopher. So long as the world lasts it will probably be open to any one to hold consistently, in the last resort, either of the two hypotheses, that of a divine mind, or that of no divine mind. There is no way that we know of by which the alternative may be excluded. Viewed philosophically, the question only is, Which is the better supported hypothesis of the two?

We have only to say that the Darwinian system, as we understand it, coincides well with the theistic view of Nature. It not only acknowledges purpose (in the Contemporary Reviewer’s sense), but builds upon it; and if purpose in this sense does not of itself imply design, it is certainly compatible with it, and suggestive of it.

(Asa Gray, “Evolutionary Teleology;” In: Asa Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism, [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878], pp. 378-379.)

A. A. Hodge:

I am going to ask you this afternoon to make the distinction between evolution as a working hypothesis of science and evolution as a philosophy.

What is science? Science is something which is very sure, but very narrow. Science has to deal simply with facts, phenomena—things to be seen and heard, etc.—and with their qualities, their likeness, or unlikeness, whether they have a common existence, coexist or have a succession. That is the whole of it. The reason science speaks with such authority is this: science is verifiable, and what is verified you must believe: you cannot get around facts. Science is verifiable, and therefore has authority; but it is very narrow. Now, there are a great many things you may call science which have not any science in them. Remember, therefore, that science is to be confined to phenomena, their likeness and unlikeness, their coexistence or succession; and that science has nothing whatever to do with causes, has nothing whatever to do with ends or objects. Science is authoritative within its sphere, because it can determine qualitatively what a thing is and quantitatively how much a thing is, and such results can be expressed in numbers. In this way science has gained its wide dissemination and its great authority. I feel I have a right to say what I shall say now, because I have been associated with a good many men of science who were also devout Christians. This doctrine of evolution, when it is confined to science as a working hypothesis, you may let alone, Christian friends, all of you. You need not be afraid of it. It cannot affect any of the questions of religion; it cannot affect any questions of revelation; it cannot lead you wrong; it must in the end go right. It has a narrow track on grooves, but truth is eternal and must prevail; a lie cannot prevail.

On the other hand, what you have been accustomed to call evolution is not a science. Now, when Tyndall and Huxley go to a great scientific meeting they talk science, they confine themselves to science. When they write books for the public and to circulate about, they give themselves to speculation, and it is this doctrine of evolution run wild which is the evolution of the day, the general talk of the people. You hear it talked about in the newspapers and find it discussed in all circles. It is only a philosophy. Philosophy is different from science. Science is applied to facts, philosophy has to do with causes. Now, I say, do not fear evolution in the department of science, but do fear and oppose evolution with all your might when it is given to you as a philosophy. As a philosophy it explains everything with one solvent; with one theory it would explain universal being.

(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, [Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1887], pp. 173-174.)

Jan Lever:

When we propose that one as a Christian does not have to reject a priori the idea of a genetic continuity of the living organisms and that one can co-operate whole-heartedly in the investigations, then this very fact already shows, according to our view, that the difference between evolutionism and creationism in the first instance does not lie in the sphere of the data, of the investigations, and of the hypotheses. This difference lies deeper because the working hypotheses of the pur sang evolutionist are not exclusively attempts to find data and to arrange them, but often include already an element of “certain knowledge,” of faith.

It is this element which Portmann designates as “the area of faith.”

The pur sang evolutionist has incorporated in his worldview—his philosophy, his faith—a few dogmatic truths. We have seen earlier how in Lamarck, Darwin, T. H. Huxley and Haeckel faith in the absolute autonomy of the laws of nature took the place of the Christian faith. With some (e.g., Lamarck, T. H. Huxley) the idea of God, it is true, remained positively as a possibility, but God was for them deistically reduced to an impersonal first cause, “cette première cause,” “a pre-existent Being.” With others, absolute atheism lies in the background of their thinking. Thus J. Huxley says, “I am philosophically a non-theist.”

(Jan Lever, Creation and Evolution, trans. Peter G. Berkhout, [Grand Rapids: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1958], pp. 203-204.)

Cornelius van der Kooi, Gijsbert van den Brink:

It seems to us that the Bible itself thus models the way to approach questions about the relationship between the (Jewish-) Christian faith and evolutionary theory. There is no reason to reject this theory so long as it limits itself to a scientific picture of how the (biological) world operates. It becomes a very different matter when, whether consciously or unconsciously, the evolutionary approach is mingled with ideology and idolatry, which happens whenever it makes worldview statements that the natural sciences cannot possibly prove—for example, that life has no purpose, that humanity is a magnificent accident of nature, and that religion and morality are merely side effects of the struggle for existence.

…We should not minimize the psychological stakes involved in this process. In the Copernican worldview the earth (and thus humanity too) was no longer seen as the center of the universe. It is therefore perfectly understandable that theologians like Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) refused to budge; besides, did not the Bible teach that the sun moves around the earth, rather than the earth around the sun? Nonetheless, today no one holds to what Voetius said. We have recognized that accepting the Copernican system does not result in the collapse of the Christian faith, or even change the essence of its content. Similarly, Christians have to deal with the theory of evolution, confident that, when it comes to questions of origins, the “two books of God”—nature and the Bible—will ultimately be consonant and not contradict each other. At the very least, we may say that there is no reason to think that Christians have a calling to begin a crusade against scientific worldviews, as long as their potential religious implications are thoroughly screened.

(Cornelius van der Kooi, Gijsbert van den Brink, Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2017], pp. 226, 227-228.) Preview.

Note: See further: “Science Interpreting Scripture: A Case Study (Galileo Galilei and Heliocentrism).”

2.2. Evolution and Providence. Return to Outline.

A. H. Strong:

There is a Christian conception of evolution, and in light of it, I propose to interpret the fall and the redemption of man. To prevent misunderstanding, I must define what I mean by evolution. Evolution is not a cause but a method. God is the cause. He is in his universe, and he is the source of all its activities with the single exception of the evil activity of the human will. When I speak of evolution as the method of God, I imply that the immanent God works by law; that this is the law of development; that God, and the old the basis of the new, and the new an outgrowth of the old. In all ordinary cases God works from within and not from without. Yet this ordinary method does not confine or limit God. He is transcendent as well as immanent. His is not simply “in all” and “through all” but he is also “above all.”

(Augustus Hopkins Strong, Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism, [Philadelphia: The Griffith & Rowland Press, 1899], p. 163.)

Cf. A. H. Strong:

If we were deists, believing in a distant God and a mechanical universe, evolution and Christianity would be irreconcilable. But since we believe in a dynamical universe, of which the personal and living God is the inner source of energy, evolution is but the basis, foundation and background of Christianity, the silent and regular working of him who, in the fulness of time, utters his voice in Christ and the cross.

(Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium and Commonplace Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students: Three Volumes in One, [Philadelphia: The Griffith & Rowland Press, 1912], p. 123.)

Hermann Lotze:

The present disputes concerning the origin of the human species we regard with indifference. Once we have grasped the fact that every operation in nature, down even to the most minute, takes place only under divine assistance, the greater dignity of man and his nearer relation to God can be injuriously affected by no method of origination of the race which the testimony of experience may compel us to adopt. It is therefore, from the religious point of view, a matter of indifference what the investigation of nature may educe on this point.

The development of simpler organisms into higher is without doubt indisputable, though the more exact mode of this may be perhaps beyond our reach; but the irreligious tendency, so industriously propagated, to regard this development only as a series of chances, is utterly untenable. It is theoretically untenable.

(Hermann Lotze, Grundzüge der Psychologie: Dictate aus den Vorlesungen, [Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1882], §. 74, p. 78; trans. Alexander Mair, Studies in the Christian Evidences: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889], p. 347.)

Note: See further: Providence.

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

Alister E. McGrath:

A common religious concern is that Darwin’s evolutionary theory led to the elimination of God from any role within the world. It does not require divine action in order for it to take place, and the random nature of variation is inconsistent with the idea of divine creation and providence, which is linked with the ideas of design, purpose and intentionality. Richard Dawkins thus argues that Darwin’s theory renders belief in God superfluous. Many conservative Protestant writers agree, arguing that the role attributed to random events is inconsistent with the biblical material. Creationist writers often consider this one of the most important elements of their critique of Darwinism.

However, the force of this point is open to question. B.B. Warfield (1851-1921), perhaps one of the most influential conservative Protestant theologians of the late nineteenth century, pointed out that evolution could easily be understood as a seemingly random process which was nevertheless divinely superintended. God’s providence, he argued, could be seen as directing the evolutionary process towards its intended goals. Warfield — seen by some as the founder of an ‘inerrantist’ view of the Bible — also pointed out that if a way of interpreting the Bible was in conflict with science, it might be because that way of understanding the text was wrong and needed review. While some would see this as a weak ‘accommodationist’ argument, Warfield wanted to acknowledge that biblical interpretation needed to take science into account.

…the most widely proposed mechanism which Christian writers have put forward to account for God’s involvement in the evolutionary process is the classic notion of secondary causality, particularly as this was developed by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. For Aquinas, God’s causality operates in a number of ways. While God must be considered capable of doing certain things directly, God delegates causal efficacy to the created order. Aquinas understands this notion of secondary causality to be an extension of, not an alternative to, the primary causality of God. Events within the created order can exist in complex causal relationships without in any way denying their ultimate dependency upon God as final cause.

(Alister E. McGrath, The Big Question: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God, [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015], pp. 124-125, 125. Cf. Alister E. McGrath, Science & Religion: An Introduction, [Oxford & Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999], pp. 43-44.)

Asa Gray:

Two things have helped on this confusion. One is the notion of the direct and independent creation of species, with only an ideal connection between them, to question which was thought to question the principle of design. The other is a wrong idea of the nature and province of natural selection. In former papers we have over and over explained the Darwinian doctrine in this respect. It may be briefly illustrated thus: Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the rudder which, by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course. The rudder acts while the vessel is in motion, effects nothing when it is at rest. Variation answers to the wind: “Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.” Its course is controlled by natural selection, the action of which, at any given moment, is seеmingly small or insensible; but the ultimate results are great. This proceeds mainly through outward influences. But we are more and more convinced that variation, and therefore the ground of adaptation, is not a product of, but a response to, the action of the environment. Variations, in other words, the differences between individual plants and animals, however originated, are evidently not from without but from within—not physical but physiological.

(Asa Gray, “Evolutionary Teleology;” In: Asa Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism, [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878], pp. 385-386.)

Cf. Sir Francis Bacon:

That notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from Creating since the first Sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil his Divine Will in all Things, great and small, singular and general; as fully and exactly by Providence, as he could by Miracle and new Creation, though his Working be not immediate and direct, but by Compass; not violating Nature, which is his own Law upon the Creature.

(Francis Bacon, A Confession of Faith, [London: W. Owen, 1757], p. 17.)

Cf. R. B. Kuiper:

How wary many Fundamentalists are of admitting that God frequently employs natural means in performing miracles, in themselves supernatural.

(R. B. Kuiper, As to Being Reformed: Second Edition, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1926], p. 78.)

James Orr:

“Evolution,” in short, is coming to be recognized as but a new name for “creation,” only that the creative power now works from within, instead of, as in the old conception, in an external, plastic fashion. It is, however, creation none the less.

(James Orr, “Science and Christian Faith;” In: The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth: Volume IV, [Chicago: Testimony Publishing Company], p. 103.)

2.2.1. Immanence vs Intervention. Return to Outline.

Charles Darwin:

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.

(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, [New York: Atheneum, 1967], p. 488.)

Cf. Benjamin Farrington:

But in abandoning Christianity Darwin did not become an atheist; he reverted to the theism of his father and grandfather. He chose always to lard his writings with references to the First Cause or the Creator.

(Benjamin Farrington, What Darwin Really Said, [New York: Schocken Books, 1973], p. 96.)

Cf. Alister McGrath:

One of the major themes in The Origin of Species is the notion of ‘laws impressed on matter by the Creator’, which is actually given a higher profile in the second edition of the work than in the first. Darwin seems to have conceived of evolutionary law in the realm of biology as being analogous to gravitational law in the realm of astronomy. This is certainly suggested by the three highly significant quotations that Darwin placed before the main text of The Origin of Species. Two of these were present in the first edition; the third was added in the second edition. These three citations are designed to frame Darwin’s exposition of natural selection within a framework of natural laws.

The first of these sentences is taken from the writings of William Whewell, a Cambridge philosopher of science: ‘Events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.’ Whewell’s words echo the widely accepted theological framework – found in theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and scientists such as Isaac Newton – which held that God does not normally intervene in the natural order, but acts indirectly through the created laws of nature. This idea is clearly implicit in the ‘big book’ on natural selection on which Darwin worked from about 1856 to 1858: ‘By nature, I mean the laws ordained by God to govern the Universe.’

The second quotation, present from the second edition onwards, is taken from Joseph Butler’s Analogy of Religion, a classic eighteenth-century work of Anglican theology, affirming that God’s actions can be considered as operating through the regular processes of nature, rather than as being superimposed upon it: ‘What is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.’

The final quotation, taken from Roger Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, appeals to the classic Renaissance image of the consilience of science and religion – the metaphor of the ‘two books’, the book of God’s word (the Bible) and the book of God’s works (nature). Nobody, Bacon declared, should think ‘that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both’.

One of the major achievements of Darwin’s The Origin of Species was to show how an explanation could be given for what he described as the ‘mystery of mysteries’ – the successive appearance of new life forms that could be seen in the fossil record. If new species could emerge from pre-existing species by a process of natural selection, it was no longer necessary to suppose the occurrence of what Darwin called ‘independent acts of creation’. Darwin developed his theory in terms of ‘laws impressed upon matter by the Creator’ rather than individual divine actions of creation.

(Alister McGrath, Inventing the Universe: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God, [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015], pp. 101-102.)

John Polkinghorne:

…differs from the old-style natural theology of William Paley and others by basing its arguments not upon particular occurrences (the coming-to-be of the eye or of life itself), but on the character of the physical fabric of the world, which is the necessary ground for the possibility of any occurrence (it appeals to cosmic rationality and the anthropic form of the laws of nature).

(John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science, [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998], p. 10.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

…embryological and evolutionary processes are both teleological and ordained by God. At conception, the DNA in a fertilized human egg is fully equipped with the necessary information for a person to develop during the nine months of pregnancy. Similarly, the Creator loaded into the Big Bang the plan and capability for the universe and life, including humans, to evolve over 10-15 billion years.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], p. 28.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

…the evolutionary intelligent design argument underlines the foresight, majesty, and rationality mirrored in the natural processes that created the universe and life through eons of time. In this way, the declaration of God’s glory extends to the self-assembling character of the physical world. Design is evident in the finely tuned physical laws reflected in the processes necessary for life to evolve, including humans. In particular, intelligent design is obvious in the evolution of incredibly complex brains that allow men and women to relate to one another and to their Creator.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution, [Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2008], pp. 80-81.)

2.2.2. Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creationism—Are They Really So Different? Return to Outline.

Nancey Murphy:

…PC is clearly a version of interventionism (as is the intelligent design movement), but claiming that TE is ambiguous. TE is the thesis that God creates through the evolutionary process, but the essential question is whether God guides the process or not. If not, there is no difference here from the liberals’ immanentism. If God does, then must it not be by interventionism, and so is it any different from PC?

(Nancey Murphy, “Science, Divine Action, and the Intelligent Design Movement: A Defense of Theistic Evolution;” In: Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], p. 154.)

Note: PC = Progressive Creationism, TE = Theistic Evolution.

Nancey Murphy:

Much of the controversy over evolution would dissolve if it were not assumed by many conservatives that scientific accounts and accounts of divine creative action are mutually exclusive.

(Nancey C. Murphy, “Immanence or Intervention: How Does God Act in the World;” In: Nancey C. Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda, [Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2007], p. 69.)

Hermann Lotze:

Note: See further: Providence.

A. H. Strong:

B. Alternative and Preferable Definition.—A miracle is an event in nature, so extraordinary in itself and so coinciding with the prophecy or command of a religious teacher or leader, as fully to warrant the conviction, on the part of those who witness it, that God has wrought it with the design of certifying that this teacher or leader has been commissioned by him.

This definition has certain marked advantages as compared with the preliminary definition given above:—(a) It recognizes the immanence of God and his immediate agency in nature, instead of assuming an antithesis between the laws of nature and the will of God. (b) It regards the miracle as simply an extraordinary act of that same God who is already present in all natural operations and who in them is revealing his general plan. (c) It holds that natural law, as the method of God’s regular activity, in no way precludes unique exertions of his power when these will best secure his purpose in creation. (d) It leaves it possible that all miracles may have their natural explanations and may hereafter be traced to natural causes, while both miracles and their natural causes may be only names for the one and self-same will of God. (e) It reconciles the claims of both science and religion: of science, by permitting any possible or probable physical antecedents of the miracle; of religion, by maintaining that these very antecedents together with the miracle itself are to be interpreted as signs of God’s special commission to him under whose teaching or leadership the miracle is wrought.

Cf. A. H. Strong:

An event in nature may be caused by an agent in nature yet above nature. This is evident from the following considerations:

(a) Lower forces and laws in nature are frequently counteracted and transcended by the higher (as mechanical forces and laws by chemical, and chemical by vital), while yet the lower forces and laws are not suspended or annihilated, but are merged in the higher, and made to assist in accomplishing purposes to which they are altogether unequal when left to themselves.

…(b) The human will acts upon its physical organism, and so upon nature, and produces results which nature left to herself never could accomplish, while yet no law of nature is suspended or violated. Gravitation still operates upon the axe, even while man holds it at the surface of the water—for the axe still has weight (cf. 2 K. 6:5-7).

Cf. A. H. Strong:

(d) What the human will, considered as a supernatural force, and what the chemical and vital forces of nature itself, are demonstrably able to accomplish, cannot be regarded as beyond the power of God, so long as God dwells in and controls the universe. If man’s will can act directly upon matter in his own physical organism, God’s will can work immediately upon the system which he has created and which he sustains. In other words, if there be a God, and if he be a personal being, miracles are possible. The impossibility of miracles can be maintained only upon principles of atheism or pantheism.

Cf. Nancey Murphy:

Strong intends to avoid the objectionable aspects of interventionism by emphasizing God’s immanence. It is not that God’s action itself is a force among forces in the universe, but rather that God’s will directs the forces of the universe, bringing about higher levels of reality and also extraordinary events.

(Nancey C. Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy set the Theological Agenda, [Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2007], p. 76.)

Cf. A. H. Strong:

Evolution, then, depends on increments of force plus continuity of plan. New creations are possible because the immanent God has not exhausted himself. Miracle is possible because God is not far away, but is at hand to do whatever the needs of his moral universe may require. …If we were deists, believing in a distant God and a mechanical universe, evolution and Christianity would be irreconcilable. But since we believe in a dynamical universe, of which the personal and living God is the inner source of energy, evolution is but the basis, foundation and background of Christianity, the silent and regular working of him who, in the fulness of time, utters his voice in Christ and the Cross.

James McCosh:

There is proof of Plan in the Organic Unity and Growth of the World. As there is evidence of purpose, not only in every organ of the plant, but in the whole plant; not only in every limb of the animal, but in the whole animal frame, and in the growth of both plant and animal from month to month and year to year: so there are proofs of design, not merely in the individual plant and individual animal, but in the whole structure of the Cosmos and in the manner in which it makes progress from age to age. Every reflecting mind, in tracing the development of the plant or animal, will see a design and a unity of design in it, in the unconscious elements being all made to conspire to a given end, in the frame of the animated being taking a predetermined form; so every one trained in the great truths of advanced science should see a contemplated purpose in the way in which the materials and forces and life of the universe are made to conspire, to secure a progress through indeterminate ages. The persistence of force may be one of the elements conspiring to this end; the law of Natural Selection may be another, or it may only be a modification of the same: all and, each work in the midst of a struggle for existence, in which the strong prevail and the weak disappear. But in all this there is a starting point and a terminus, and rails along which the powers run, and an intelligence planning and guiding the whole, and bringing it to its destination freighted with blessings.

The accomplishment of all this implies arrangement and co-agency. There are order and progression, we have seen, in the physical works of God: this is said, in modern nomenclature, to be a law. A law of what? Is it a law in the Divine mind? Yes: it is a law there before it appears as a law in nature. It is a rule of the Divine procedure. But is it not also a law of nature? It certainly is so in the loose acceptation of the word law now adopted. But in what sense? Certainly not in the sense of a simple, self-acting property, but in a widely different sense,—in the sense of a generalized fact or co-ordination of facts. But all such laws are complex: they result from the co-ordination and adaptation of an immense body of agencies, just as the keeping of time by the chronometer results from an assortment of divers instruments, such as the mainspring and attached machinery. The revolution, for instance, of the earth round the sun is not a property either of the earth or of the sun, but of a combination of a centripetal and centrifugal force, and of the relation of the two bodies to each other. The law followed by the plant when it springs from the seed, grows and bears seed, is still more complex, employing a greater number of powers and adaptations of particles one to another, and of gravitating, chemical, electric, and vital agents. But the law of the progression of all plants and of all animals is a still more complex one, implying adjustment upon adjustment of all the elements and all the powers of nature towards the accomplishment of an evidently contemplated end, in which are displayed the highest wisdom and the most considerate goodness.

(James McCosh, Christianity and Positivism: A Series of Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics, [New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1874], pp. 90-92.)

Cf. David N. Livingstone:

What on the one hand was ascribed to the orderly workings of the Creator, he argued, could on the other hand be interpreted as the results of natural law; each account expounded the plans of the great Lawgiver in its own way.

(David N. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1987], p. 109.)

Francis Landey Patton:

…a more egregious blunder is hardly conceivable than that of assuming that Evolution and Atheism are synonymous. …There is a teleology immanent in the very nature of the organisms providing for the existing order of biological development. This, again, only shows that the doctrine of evolution cannot be made rational without invoking the idea of design, and that instead of being antagonistic to the theistic proof which builds upon design, the idea of design is woven into the very web of nature.

(Francis Landey Patton, “Evolution and Apologetics;” In: The Presbyterian Review: Volume VI: 1885, [New York: The Presbyterian Review Association, 1885], No. 21, January 1885, p. 140.)

Cf. David N. Livingstone:

His loyalty to the Old School traditions is evident not only in his institutional affiliations, however, but also in his eulogy for Charles Hodge, in such publications as Fundamental Christianity, and in the fact that J. Gresham Machen dedicated his book What Is Faith? to him in 1925.

(David N. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1987], p. 115.)

B. B. Warfield:

Some lack of general philosophical acumen must be suspected, when it is not fully understood that teleology is in no way inconsistent with—is rather necessarily involved in—a complete system of natural causation. Every teleological system implies a complete “causo-mechanical” explanation as its instrument.

(B. B. Warfield, “Reviews of Recent Literature: Apologetical Theology;” In: The Princeton Theological Review: Volume VI: 1908, [Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1908], p. 649.)

James Iverach:

Are we, then, to deny even in the case of man “special creation”? Yes and no, as we understand the meaning of the term. To me creation is continuous. To me everything is as it is through the continuous power of God; every law, every being, every relation of being are determined by Him, and He is the Power by which all things exist. I believe in the immanence of God in the world, and I do not believe that He comes forth merely at a crisis, as Mr. Wallace supposes. Apart from the Divine action man would not have been, or have an existence; but apart from the Divine action nothing else would have an existence.

(James Iverach, Christianity and Evolution, [London Hodder and Stoughton, 1894], pp. 175-176.)

James Orr:

Assume God—as many devout evolutionists do—to be immanent in the evolutionary process, and His intelligence and purpose to be expressed in it; then evolution, so far from conflicting with theism, may become a new and heightened form of the theistic argument. The real impelling force of evolution is now from within; it is not blind but purposeful; forces are inherent in organisms which, not fortuitously but with design, work out the variety and gradations in nature we observe. Evolution is but the other side of a previous involution and only establishes a higher teleology.

(James Orr, God’s Image in Man and Its Defacement in the Light of Modern Denials, [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1905], p. 96.)

David L. Wilcox:

I have no metaphysical necessity driving me to propose the miraculous action of the evident finger of God as a scientific hypothesis. In my world view, all natural forces and events are fully contingent on the free choice of the sovereign God. Thus, neither an adequate nor an inadequate “neo-Darwinism” (as mechanism) holds any terrors. …I conclude that the easy acceptance of neo-Darwinism as a complete and adequate explanation for all biological reality has indeed been based in the metaphysical needs of a dominant materialistic consensus. One can be a theistic “Darwinian,” but no one can be an atheistic “Creationist.”

(David L. Wilcox, “Reply to Arthur M. Shapiro: Tamed Tornadoes;” In: Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? eds. Jon Buell, Virginia Hearn, [Richardson: Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 1994], p. 215.)

Del Ratzsch:

Suppose contemporary evolutionary theory had blind chance built into it so firmly that there was simply no way of reconciling it with any sort of divine guidance. It would still be perfectly possible for theists to reject that theory of evolution and accept instead a theory according to which natural processes and laws drove most of evolution, but God on occasion abridged those laws and inserted some crucial mutation into the course of events. Even were God to intervene directly to suspend natural law and inject essential new genetic material at various points in order to facilitate the emergence of new traits and, eventually, new species, that miraculous and deliberate divine intervention would by itself leave unchallenged such key theses of evolutionary theory as that all species derive ultimately from some common ancestor. Descent with genetic intervention is still descent—it is just descent with nonnatural elements in the process.

(Del Ratzsch, The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1996], pp. 187-188.)

N. T. Wright:

It may well be the case, just as fifteenth-century Epicureanism opened the way for aspects of the Renaissance, that Enlightenment Epicureanism opened the way for questions to be asked from new angles. But whereas it has been assumed, for instance, that the discoveries of Charles Darwin and others proved the worldview with which they had started—which was not, I stress, a modern worldview, but only a modern version of an ancient one—the conclusion is not warranted by the evidence. Let’s leave aside the problems that some still suggest are latent within a Darwinian account of the way the world is. Supposing it all works, it does not follow that the Epicurean worldview, with absent gods and independent atoms, is correct. That would be the case only if causation were a zero-sum game, so that either God or observable physical causes were involved. As soon as you challenge that rather naive assumption, all sorts of other options are open.

This is the point, in fact, at which some of the sharpest and angriest questions are still asked. If you are supporting Darwin, a furious correspondent wrote me the other day, that means you don’t believe in miracles—so you can’t really believe in the resurrection or the virgin birth or whatever else. Now a central part of my problem with this whole discourse is that the very word miracle itself, in the way we now hear it in post-Enlightenment Europe and America, is bound to be fatally damaged by the implicit Epicureanism of our latent worldview. So too with the word supernatural, which was used well before the Enlightenment but since then has taken on resonances of the same worldview. The problem could be put like this: in science/religion debates, or evolution/creation debates, it is all too easy for the scientists or evolutionists to state their position in Epicurean terms, and for the Christians or creationists to follow suit. Of course, the Christians or creationists wouldn’t actually be Epicureans, precisely since they believe in a god who did make the world and who does still run it. But they inherit and operate within the deeply damaged vision of the creator and the cosmos that they get from Deism, and which shares its worst features with Epicureanism: that some things happen naturally, while other things happen only because God makes them happen.

A striking example of this, which I wrote up in my book on virtue (After You Believe), occurred in New York in January of 2009. An aircraft took off from LaGuardia and almost at once ran into a flock of geese. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger II, made several lightning decisions and performed dozens of complex flying maneuvers in a couple of minutes, and the plane landed safely on the Hudson River. Lots of people said it was a miracle, and I wouldn’t for a moment say that God was not involved in that whole process. But the reason the plane landed safely was that Sullenberger had been flying planes and gliders, and teaching others to do so too, for thirty years. His character had been formed so that all those complex thoughts and actions were second nature. The danger in using the word miracle, in other words, is that we assume the zero-sum either/or. Either God did it or the pilot did it. And it is that assumption, shared by post-Enlightenment Christians and secularists alike, which needs to be challenged in the name of a genuinely biblical worldview.

(N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues, [New York: HarperOne, 2014], pp. 13-14.)

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

R. L. Dabney:

Second: I remark that if the theory of the evolutionist were all conceded, the argument from designed adaptation would not be abolished, but only removed one step backward. If we are mistaken in believing that God made every living creature that moveth after its kind: if the higher kinds were in fact all developed from the lowest; then the question recurs: Who planned and adjusted these wondrous powers of development? Who endowed the cell-organs of the first living protoplasm with all this fitness for evolution into the numerous and varied wonders of animal life and function, so diversified, yet all orderly adaptations? There is a wonder of creative wisdom and power, at least equal to that of the Mosaic genesis. That this point is justly taken, appears hence: Those philosophers who concede (as I conceive, very unphilosophically and unnecessarily) the theory of “creation by law,” do not deem that they have thereby weakened the teleological argument in the least. It appears again, in the language of evolutionists themselves: When they unfold what they suppose to be the results of this system, they utter the words “beautiful contrivance of nature,” “wise adjustment” and such like, involuntarily. This is the testimony of their own reason, uttered in spite of a perverse and shallow theory.

(Robert Lewis Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology: Taught in Union Theological Seminary, Virginia: Third Edition, [Asbury Park: Presbyterian Publishing Company, 1885], p. 37.)

Note: While Dabney had a somewhat strained relationship with the “science” of his day, and most certainly was not an advocate of “evolution” as a biological mechanism (or even of an old earth), he concedes—rather ungraciously—that “evolution” as a biological mechanism is not necessarily antithetically opposed to a teleological understanding of biology or to the Genesis account of creation.

2.3. Understanding Evolutionary Creation. Return to Outline.

Denis O. Lamoureux:

Imagine that God’s creative action in the origin of the world is like the stroke of a cue stick in a game of billiards. Divide and label the balls into three groups using the words heavens, earth, and living organisms, and let the 8-ball represent humanity. The young earth creationist depicts the Creator making single shot after single shot with no miscues until all the balls are off the table. No doubt, that’s remarkable. A progressive creationist sees the opening stroke that breaks the balls as the Big Bang. All of the balls labeled heavens and earth are sunk by this initial shot. Then God sinks those that signify living organisms and humans individually. That’s even more impressive.

Evolutionary creationists claim that the God-of-the-individual-shots, like the God-of-the-gaps, fails to reveal fully the power and foresight of the Designer. According to this view of origins, the breaking stroke is so incredibly precise and finely tuned that not only are all the balls sunk, but they drop in order. It begins with those labeled heavens, then earth, followed by living organisms, and finally the 8-ball—the most important ball in billiards—representing humans. And to complete the analogy, the Lord pulls this last ball out of the pocket and holds it in His hands to show His personal involvement with men and women. Is such a God not infinitely more talented than that of the anti-evolutionists? Are His eternal power and divine nature not best illustrated in the last example? Doesn’t the evolutionary creationist depiction of the Creator provide the most magnificent reflection of intelligent design?

This is how I see design in evolution. I certainly agree with young earth creationists and progressive creationists that the structure and operation of the present world points to a Designer. But evolutionary creationists have a greater and more complete view of design than the anti-evolutionists. We include the incalculable number of evolutionary processes in the origin of the universe and life, so the declaration of God’s glory extends to the amazing self-assembling character of the creation. Yet despite differences between Christians on how intelligent design arose in the world, we must never forget that we stand united in affirming that nature clearly reflects the designing intelligence of our Creator.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. 151-152.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

…God created the universe and life through evolution. This view of origins is known as “evolutionary creation.” It claims that evolution is a creative process similar to that which the Lord uses to form every one of us in our mother’s womb. No Christian today believes that God comes out of heaven to attach an ear, nose, or arm to a developing baby. Instead, we understand that He employs natural processes to create human beings. In fact, God is the creator of all the laws of nature, including these developmental (embryological) mechanisms. I believe that this is also the case with evolution. The Creator planned and maintained evolutionary laws and processes in order to create the entire world and us. In other words, our origin is not a fluke or mistake. …It is reasonable to accept both the Christian doctrine of creation and the scientific theory of evolution. From this perspective, the God of the Bible created the world through teleological evolution, which is a design-reflecting natural process that He ordained and sustained.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. xvi, 8.)

Vern Poythress:

Theistic evolution would agree almost completely with the overall factual history of life that mainstream evolutionists postulate. Theistic evolutionists might say that mainstream evolutionists have their facts right, but that the hand of God supervised the entire process of gradual change in forms of life over the millennia.

In the minds of many, the word “evolution” has now become closely associated with the anti-theistic worldview of evolutionary naturalism. “Theistic evolution” therefore seems to be a contradiction in terms. We need a better label, perhaps “divinely controlled gradual production of kinds of life.” However, “theistic evolution” is the traditional label, so I will continue to use it, with the understanding that one should not import secularism into the label just because of the word “evolution.” “Theistic evolution” is simply a convenient label for the position that thinks that God consistently used ordinary means during the past. Some theistic evolutionists would allow that God’s creation of Adam and Eve may have been exceptional. This allowance for exceptions seems to me wise, not only because of the particularities that the Bible gives in describing the creation of Eve, but also because the transcendence of God implies that he has power to act exceptionally, and we as creatures do not know beforehand exactly when he may do so.

…I conclude, then, that Genesis 1 harmonizes with fiat creation. Yes, God could have created each kind of animal instantly, by his word. But it also harmonizes with theistic evolution, because it does not teach that God used no means. Rather, it is silent about means in order to concentrate on the main point.

(Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Science: A God Centered Approach, [Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006], pp. 252-253, 255.)

N. T. Wright:

When we say that all things are made in and through and for Jesus the Messiah, this is the Jesus we must be talking about. There is no other. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. This means we should at least try to think what it might mean to say that this Jesus and this vision of the Kingdom is the lens through which we might understand creation itself. Instead of starting with a great act of creation, however we can conceive it, and then fitting Jesus somehow into it; saying he was somehow fit into it; saying he was somehow involved in it. We must somehow start with what we know of Jesus’ own vision of truth and the kingdom and power and ask what that might mean for creation itself. The results, I think, are striking.

To begin with, if creation comes through the kingdom bringing Jesus, we ought to expect it be like a seed growing secretly. That it would involve seed being sown in a prodigal fashion in which a lot went to waste, apparently, but other seed producing a great crop. We ought to expect that it be like a strange, slow process which might suddenly reach some kind of harvest. We ought to expect that it would involve some kind of overcoming of chaos. Above all, we ought to expect that it would be a work of utter, self-giving love. That the power which made the world, like the power which ultimately rescued the world, would be the power not of brute force, but of radical, outpoured generosity. We ought to expect, in other words, that the creation would not look like an oriental despot deciding to build a palace, and just throwing it up at speed, with his architects and builders cowering before him.

We ought to have anticipated that the Deists’ models of creation, conceived on the analogies of the early industrial successes, in the 17th and 18th centuries, might in fact be misleading. And that they would need correcting in the light of either of a better picture of the one through whom creation was accomplished—the Deists were keen to getting Jesus out of the picture—or in the light of fresh scientific research. No one in the late 18th or early 19th centuries was doing the kind of fresh work on Jesus and the gospels that would lead to this picture. But various scientists (not least the Darwin family a century before Charles Darwin), motivated by quite a different worldview—namely, Epicureanism—nonetheless come up with a picture of Origins that looks remarkably like Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom: some seeds go to waste, others bear remarkable fruit; some projects start tiny and take forever, but ultimately produce a great crop; some false starts are wonderfully rescued, others are forgotten. Chaos is astonishingly overcome.

This says nothing about generosity, since that word only makes sense in terms of a personal creator. Which the Epicureans, like Erasmus Darwin, Charles’s grandfather, had ruled out. That’s one of the major differences, but the evolutionists were driven again and again to speak of the prodigality of the natural world. The theologian can pick that up and say, “Yes! Precisely what you would expect if there was a God of boundless, generous love behind it all. The prodigal father. The God we know in and as Jesus the Messiah.”

(N. T. Wright, “NT Wright: If Creation is Through Christ, Evolution is What You Would Expect,” [April 25, 2017], https://biologos.org/resources/if-creation-is-through-christ-evolution-is-what-you-would-expect.)

3. Darwin and Darwinism. Return to Outline.

Charles Darwin:

It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist.

(Charles Darwin, “Letter to John Fordyce,” May 7, 1879; In: John Fordyce, Aspects of Scepticism: With Special Reference to the Present Time, [London: Elliot Stock, 1883], p. 190.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

A comment is needed regarding the term “Darwinism.” For most individuals, it refers to dysteleological evolution. This popular definition conflates Charles Darwin’s understanding of evolution with an atheistic worldview. But this is another popular myth that needs to be burst. In his famed On the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin presents a teleological interpretation of evolution and makes seven affirmative references to the Creator. For example, he argues:

Authors of the highest eminence [i.e., leading scientists in Darwin’s day] seem to be fully satisfied that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes like those determining the birth and death of the individual.

Notably, Darwin saw a parallel between God’s creative activity in embryology and evolution. He contended that the Creator had made laws of nature that led to both the creation of an individual in the womb and the origin of all species on earth. Darwin’s position in 1859 is proof that the origins dichotomy is a false dichotomy. He believed in both God and evolution. In fact, only a few years before his death in 1882, he openly admitted, “I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God.” Therefore, in order to limit confusion and misunderstanding, I suggest that the term Darwinism not be used in the origins debate.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], p. 5.)

Charles Darwin:

(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, [New York: Atheneum, 1967], p. 488.)

Cf. Benjamin Farrington:

(Benjamin Farrington, What Darwin Really Said, [New York: Schocken Books, 1973], p. 96.)

Cf. Alister McGrath:

(Alister McGrath, Inventing the Universe: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God, [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015], pp. 101-102.)

Charles Darwin:

It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist. You are right about Kingsley. Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, is another case in point. What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to anyone except myself. But, as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. Moreover, whether a man deserves to be called a Theist depends on the definition of the term, which is much too large a subject for a note. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.

(Charles Darwin, “Letter to John Fordyce,” May 7, 1879; In: John Fordyce, Aspects of Scepticism: With Special Reference to the Present Time, [London: Elliot Stock, 1883], p. 190.)

Cf. Frank Burch Brown:

Darwin in his later years took a skeptical attitude toward his theistic thoughts and feelings; yet they recurred intermittently until his death. In view of the ambiguity of the evidence and the limitations of the mind, his agnosticism, verging sometimes on theism and sometimes on atheism, was itself uncertain.

(Frank Burch Brown, The Evolution of Darwin’s Religious Views, NABPR Special Studies Series, Number 10, [Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987], p. 32.)

Cf. Charles Darwin:

Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind.

(Charles Darwin, “Letter to William Graham,” July 3, 1881; In: Francis Darwin, The Life And Letters of Charles Darwin: In Two Volumes: Vol. I, [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897], p. 285.)

Cf. Nick Spencer, Denis Alexander:

Thus his agnosticism was of the profoundest kind. Not only did he not know about God but he didn’t know whether he could know.

(Nick Spencer, Denis Alexander, Rescuing Darwin: God and Evolution in Britain Today, [London: Theos, 2009], p. 18.)

Cf. John L. Robinson:

…Darwin’s doubts do not vitiate the doctrine of evolution. The facts of evolution are independent of any man’s explanation of Primary Cause. Science discusses secondary causes. Science tells us what the secondary causes are, and it has taught us many undeniable facts. The great question of Primary Cause is a question of philosophy and theology.

(John L. Robinson, Evolution and Religion, [Boston: The Stratford Co., 1923], p. 156.)

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

Cf. Denis O. Lamoureux:

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], pp. 4, 5-6.)

Cf. Alister McGrath:

Darwin’s religious views changed over time, from the Christian orthodoxy of his period at Cambridge University, through a form of deism around the time of publication of The Origin of Species, to an essentially agnostic position in later life. It is certainly true that Darwin’s religious beliefs veered away from what we might loosely call ‘Christian orthodoxy’. Yet Darwin declined to be considered as an atheist. Furthermore, we do not find anything in Darwin remotely resembling the aggressive and ridiculing form of atheism characteristic of some of those who have presented themselves as his champions in more recent times. In his later life, Darwin remained respectful towards those who retained religious beliefs, while expressing hostility towards any form of dogmatism, whether religious or atheist.

What we do find in Darwin’s works, particularly his letters, is a specific critique of some aspects of Christianity, which he clearly distinguishes from a more generic belief in a God who governs the world through the laws of nature. Yet Darwin’s misgivings about Christianity seem to have little to do with his new idea of ‘natural selection’, or his theory of evolution in general. For Darwin, the problem was belief in divine providence. Some of his biographers have suggested that a crisis in Darwin’s religious convictions came about as a result of the death of his daughter Annie in 1851 at the age of ten. Darwin was also concerned about the amount of suffering he saw in the natural world. While in South America, he witnessed at first hand the terrible struggle for existence faced by the natives of the Tierra del Fuego. And as a biologist, he found himself uneasy about the violence and suffering entailed in the vicious natural food chain.

Yet, despite his own waning personal religious beliefs, Darwin was emphatic that he did not see his evolutionary ideas as liable to cause legitimate difficulties for religious believers. Others may now interpret those ideas as causing religious discomfort, or as entailing atheism; but Darwin himself did not see things this way. Darwin seems to have been willing not merely to go on record concerning, but to emphasise, the consilience of religious faith and the theory of natural selection.

(Alister McGrath, Inventing the Universe: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God, [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015], pp. 99-100.)

3.1. Objection. Return to Outline.

Charles Hodge:

…the doctrine of development, or derivation of species, may be held in a form consistent with theism. This no one denies.

(Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume II, [London and Edinburg: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1872], p. 18.)

Cf. Charles Hodge:

In saying that this system is atheistic, it is not said that Mr. Darwin is an atheist. He expressly acknowledges the existence of God; and seems to feel the necessity of his existence to account for the origin of life. Nor is it meant that every one who adopts the theory does it in an atheistic sense. It has already been remarked that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebular hypothesis as to the origin of the universe; so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory. Men who, as the Duke of Argyle, carry the reign of law into everything, affirming that even creation is by law, may hold, as he does, that God uses everywhere and constantly physical laws, to produce not only the ordinary operations of nature, but to give rise to things specifically new, and therefore to new species in the vegetable and animal worlds. Such species would thus be as truly due to the purpose and power of God as though they had been created by a word. Natural laws are said to be to God what the chisel and the brush are to the artist. Then God is as much the author of species as the sculptor or painter is the author of the product of his skill. This is a theistic doctrine. That, however, is not Darwin’s doctrine. His theory is that hundreds or thousands of millions of years ago God called a living germ, or living germs, into existence, and that since that time God has no more to do with the universe than if He did not exist. This is atheism to all intents and purposes, because it leaves the soul as entirely without God, without a Father, Helper, or Ruler, as the doctrine of Epicurus or of Comte.

(Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume II, [London and Edinburg: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1872], p. 16.)

Cf. Charles Hodge:

It is however neither evolution nor natural selection, which gives Darwinism its peculiar character and importance. It is that Darwin rejects all teleology or the doctrine of final causes.

(Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? [New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company,1874], p. 52.)

Note: Hodge’s objection is to atheistic evolution (i.e. evolution as a metaphysical theory of origins), not evolution as a general theory (i.e. of the mechanism for the development and proliferation of biological systems).

Note: Whether or not Hodge is accurately assessing Darwin’s own position is debatable.

Cf. Charles Hodge:

The words “evolution” and “Darwinism” are so often in this country, but not in Europe, used interchangeably, that it is conceivable that Dr. Peabody could retain his faith in God, and yet admit the doctrine of evolution. But it is not conceivable that any man should adopt the main element of Mr. Darwin’s theory, viz., the denial of all final causes, and the assertion, that since the first creation of matter and life, God has left the universe to the control of unintelligent physical causes, so that all the phenomena of the plants and animals, all that is in man, and all that has ever happened on the earth, is due to physical force, and yet retain his faith in Christ. On that theory, there have been no supernatural revelation, no miracles; Christ is not risen, and we are yet in our sins. It is not thus that this matter is regarded abroad. The Christians of Germany say that the only alternative these theories leave us, is Heathenism or Christianity; “Heidenthum oder Christenthum, Die Frage der Zeit.”

(Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? [New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company,1874], p. 104.)

Cf. Charles Hodge:

We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism? It is Atheism. This does not mean, as before said, that Mr. Darwin himself and all who adopt his views are atheists; but it means that his theory is atheistic, that the exclusion of design from nature is, as Dr. Gray says, tantamount to atheism.

(Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? [New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company,1874], pp. 176-177.)

3.2. Reply. Return to Outline.

Asa Gray:

First, if we rightly apprehend it, a suggestion of atheism is infused into the premises in a negative form: Mr. Darwin shows no disposition to resolve the efficiency of physical causes into the efficiency of the First Cause. Next (on page 48) comes the positive charge that “Mr. Darwin, although himself a theist,” maintains that “the contrivances manifested in the organs of plants and animals . . . . are not due to the continued coöperation and control of the divine mind, nor to the original purpose of God in the constitution of the universe.” As to the negative statement, it might suffice to recall Dr. Hodge’s truthful remark that Darwin “is simply a naturalist,” and that “his work on the origin of species does not purport to be philosophical.” In physical and physiological treatises, the most religious men rarely think it necessary to postulate the First Cause, nor are they misjudged by the omission. But surely Mr. Darwin does show the disposition which our author denies him, not only by implication in many instances, but most explicitly where one would naturally look for it, namely—at the close of the volume in question: “To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator,” etc. If that does not refer the efficiency of physical causes to the First Cause, what form of words could do so? The positive charge appears to be equally gratuitous. In both Dr. Hodge must have overlooked the beginning as well as the end of the volume which he judges so hardly. Just as mathematicians and physicists, in their systems, are wont to postulate the fundamental and undeniable truths they are concerned with, or what they take for such and require to be taken for granted, so Mr. Darwin postulates, upon the first page of his notable work, and in the words of Whewell and Bishop Butler: 1. The establishment by divine power of general laws, according to which, rather than by insulated interpositions in each particular case, events are brought about in the material world; and 2. That by the word “natural” is meant “stated, fixed, or settled,” by this same power, “since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so—i. e., to effect it continually or at stated times—as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.” So when Mr. Darwin makes such large and free use of “natural as antithetical to supernatural” causes, we are left in no doubt as to the ultimate source which he refers them to. Rather let us say there ought to be no doubt, unless there are other grounds for it to rest upon.

Such ground there must be, or seem to be, to justify or excuse a veteran divine and scholar like Dr. Hodge in his deduction of pure atheism from a system produced by a confessed theist, and based, as we have seen, upon thoroughly orthodox fundamental conceptions. Even if we may not hope to reconcile the difference between the theologian and the naturalist, it may be well to ascertain where their real divergence begins, or ought to begin, and what it amounts to. Seemingly, it is in their proximate, not in their ultimate, principles, as Dr. Hodge insists when he declares that the whole drift of Darwinism is to prove that everything “may be accounted for by the blind operation of natural causes, without any intention, purpose, or coöperation of God” (page 64). “Why don’t he say,” cries the theologian, “that the complicated organs of plants and animals are the product of the divine intelligence? If God made them, it makes no difference, so far as the question of design is concerned, how he made them, whether at once or by process of evolution” (page 58). But, as we have seen, Mr. Darwin does say that, and he over and over implies it when he refers the production of species “to secondary causes,” and likens their origination to the origination of individuals; species being series of individuals with greater difference. It is not for the theologian to object that the power which made individual men and other animals, and all the differences which the races of mankind exhibit, through secondary causes, could not have originated congeries of more or less greatly differing individuals through the same causes.

Clearly, then, the difference between the theologian and the naturalist is not fundamental, and evolution may be as profoundly and as particularly theistic as it is increasingly probable. The taint of atheism which, in Dr. Hodge’s view, leavens the whole lump, is not inherent in the original grain of Darwinism—in the principles posited—but has somehow been introduced in the subsequent treatment. Possibly, when found, it may be eliminated. Perhaps there is mutual misapprehension growing out of some ambiguity in the use of terms.

(Asa Gray, “What is Darwinism?” In: Asa Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism, [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878], pp. 268-271.)

4. Formed from the Dust. Return to Outline.

Ronald E. Osborn:

Material structure, many literalists appear to have forgotten, is not what the imago Dei refers to.

(Ronald E. Osborn, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014], p. 147.)

Denis O. Lamoureux:

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], p. xvi.)

A. H. Strong:

…the Scriptures do not disclose the method of man’s creation. Whether man’s physical system is or is not derived, by natural descent, from the lower animals, the record of creation does not inform us. As the command “Let the earth bring forth living creatures” (Gen. 1:24) does not exclude the idea of mediate creation, through natural generation, so the forming of man “of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7) does not in itself determine whether the creation of man’s body was mediate or immediate.

Cf. A. H. Strong:

The radical differences between man’s soul and the principle of intelligence in lower animals, especially man’s possession of self consciousness, general ideas, the moral sense, and the power of self-determination, show that that which chiefly constitutes him man could not have been derived, by any natural process of development, from inferior creatures. We are compelled, then, to believe that God’s “breathing into man’s nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7), though it was a mediate creation as presupposing existing material in the shape of animal forms, was yet an immediate creation in the sense that only a divine reinforcement of the process of life turned the animal into man. In other words, man came not from the brute, but through the brute, and the same immanent God who had previously created the brute created also the man.

Bruce Waltke:

When the psalmist says “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13), he is not intending to comment on genetics or immediate cause. To suggest otherwise is to distort the text. This is a clear example of why scientific and theological accounts should not be pitted against one another. In Genesis, the narrator only tells us that God commands the earth to bring forth life. He does not explain how that bringing forth occurs.

(Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001], p. 75.)

Derek Kidner:

Man in Scripture is much more than homo faber, the maker of tools: he is constituted man by God’s image and breath, nothing less. It follows that Scripture and science may well differ in the boundaries they would draw round early humanity: the intelligent beings of a remote past, whose bodily and cultural remains give them the clear status of ‘modern man’ to the anthropologist, may yet have been decisively below the plane of life which was established in the creation of Adam. If, as the text of Genesis would by no means disallow,[fn. 2: Cf., e.g., Jb. 10:8ff., Ps. 119:73, where God’s use of natural processes is described in terms of the potter’s art as in Gn. 2:7.] God initially shaped man by a process of evolution, it would follow that a considerable stock of near-humans preceded the first true man, and it would be arbitrary to picture these as mindless brutes. Nothing requires that the creature into which God breathed human life should not have been of a species prepared in every way for humanity, with already a long history of practical intelligence, artistic sensibility and the capacity for awe and reflection.

(Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1967], p. 28.)

Cf. Derek Kidner:

If this second alternative implied any doubt of the unity of mankind it would be of course quite untenable. God, as we have seen, has made all nations ‘from one’ (Acts 17:26). Genetically indeed, on this view, these two groups would be of a single stock; but by itself that would avail nothing, as Adam’s fruitless search for a helpmeet makes abundantly clear. Yet it is at least conceivable that after the special creation of Eve, which established the first human pair as God’s viceregents (Gn. 1:27,28) and clinched the fact that there is no natural bridge from animal to man, God may have now conferred His image on Adam’s collaterals, to bring them into the same realm of being. Adam’s ‘federal’ headship of humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike.

There may be a biblical hint of such a situation in the surprising impression of an already populous earth given by the words and deeds of Cain in 4:14,17. Even Augustine had to devote a chapter to answering those who ‘find this a difficulty’, and although the traditional answer is valid enough (see commentary on 4:13,14, below), the persistence of this old objection could be a sign that our presuppositions have been inadequate. Again, it may be significant that, with one possible exception,[fn. 1: If Gn. 3:20, naming Eve ‘mother of all living’, is intended as an anthropological definition, with the sense ‘ancestress of all humans’, the question is settled. This may be its purpose. But the meaning of her name, ‘life’, and the attention drawn to it by the term ‘living’, suggest that the concern of the verse is to reiterate in this context of death the promise of salvation through ‘her seed’ (3:15).] the unity of mankind ‘in Adam’ and our common status as sinners through his offence are expressed in Scripture in terms not of heredity[fn. 2: Is. 43:27, which may spring to mind against this, is asserting Israel’s long history of sin (whether back to Jacob, Abraham or Adam), not Adam’s fatherhood of man.] but simply of solidarity. We nowhere find applied to us any argument from physical descent such as that of Hebrews 7:9,10 (where Levi shares in Abraham’s act through being ‘still in the loins of his ancestor’). Rather, Adam’s sin is shown to have implicated all men because he was the federal head of humanity, somewhat as in Christ’s death ‘one died for all, therefore all died’ (2 Cor. 5:14). Paternity plays no part in making Adam ‘the figure of him that was to come’ (Rom. 5:14).

(Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1967], pp. 29-30.)

Cf. Timothy Keller:

This approach would explain perennially difficult Biblical questions such as–who were the people that Cain feared would slay him in revenge for the murder of Abel (Gen 4:14)? Who was Cain’s wife, and how could Cain have built a city filled with inhabitants (Gen 4:17)? We might even ask why Genesis 2:20 hints that Adam went on a search to ‘find’ a spouse if there were only animals around? In Kidner’s approach, Adam and Eve were not alone in the world, and that answers all these questions.

(Tim Keller, “Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople,” [February 23, 2012], p. 11. https://biologos.org/articles/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople.)

Ronald E. Osborn:

The theme of creation as process as well as event is continued throughout the narrative in richly suggestive ways. In Genesis 1:3, God says, “Let there be light,” and immediately “there was light.” The creation of light is thus ex nihilo, instantaneous and strictly by divine fiat. The Lord spoke and it was so. However, when we arrive at Genesis 1:11, we find that God does not only create ex nihilo. He recruits and involves what he has already created in the next acts of the unfolding drama. “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself,” God says. And “the earth brought forth” vegetation. The earth itself therefore participates as an obedient servant to God in the creation process/event. Life is a gift of God. At the same time, the language is clearly focused on natural generation and conveys a strong impression of organic emergence. God commands, but something very different is under way than in the creation of light in verse 3. The earth is charged with a task. The earth brings things forth.

In Genesis 1:22, the text suggests an incomplete or still-empty creation with ecological niches waiting to be filled by living creatures—again, not instantaneously or by divine fiat as in the case of light, but by the animals themselves through procreative processes that will extend across time. The birds and creatures of the seas are commanded by God to “Be fruitful, and multiply,” to “fill the waters in the seas” and to “multiply in the earth.” The text does not restrict the multiplication of animals to quantitative multiplication alone. We are left entirely free to think that the Creator might be delighted to see his creation multiply not only in number but also in kind. God’s way of creating is therefore organic, dynamic, complex and ongoing rather than merely a sequence of staccato punctuation marks by verbal decree. The God of Genesis recruits the creation as a coparticipant in his work as it unfolds, so that not all of the earth is out of nothing or by unmediated speech acts.

…The Creator initiates emergent and generative processes that anticipate a continuous creation with (in philosophical terms) “secondary causes.” …The key refrain Let—“Let there be,” “Let the waters,” “Let the earth” should serve as a clarion signal that God’s way of bringing order out of chaos involves not only directly fashioning or controlling but also granting, permitting and delegating. We must think of the creation not only in terms of divine action but also in terms of divine restraint. Rather than simply dominating the world, in the very act of bringing the world into existence God is in a certain sense already withdrawing himself from it—or perhaps better, limiting himself within it—in order for it to be free. God is the sustaining ground of all being so nothing exists apart from God, yet the very fact that things exist that are ontologically other than God implies a simultaneously present/absent Creator from the very start.

Enter Adam. Like the animals before him, Adam is not created out of nothing nor by divine fiat but from preexisting materials taken directly out of the earth, which God “forms.” The name “Adam,” practically all commentators note, is etymologically related to ’adamah, meaning “soil.” Adam’s name can be read to mean “from the soil” or even “the earth creature.” Strangely, some believers have thought that the idea that humans might be related to other animals detracts from their glory as creatures uniquely made in the image of God. Being related to soil hardly seems like a more noble distinction. Yet the fact that humans share the same material origins as other animals is plainly stated in Genesis. In Genesis 1:19, we learn that God “formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air” from “out of the ground.” Humans, birds and the beasts of the field thus share a common ancestry—they all come from out of the same earth, “Darwin and Feuerbach themselves could not speak any more strongly,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Man’s origin is in a piece of earth. His bond with the earth belongs to his essential being.” The language of Genesis is at once shrouded in tantalizing mystery and absolutely clear: Adam and the other animals are beings of the same matter, the same essential “stuff.” They are intimately related, although the link that binds them is not simply matter but the forming hand of God. We do not know how God “forms” creatures out of preexisting matter. It would be a fatal mistake to imagine the Creator of the universe in anthropomorphic terms as forming with physical hands. But the intimate language of “forming”—of creating through the gathering and shaping of already existing elements—must be read as something very different from God’s speaking things into existence.

(Ronald E. Osborn, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014], pp. 25-26, 27-28.)

John Calvin:

Let the earth bring forth, He descends to the sixth day, on which the animals were created, and then man. ‘Let the earth,’ he says, ‘bring forth living creatures.’ But whence has a dead element life? Therefore, there is in this respect a miracle as great as if God had begun to create out of nothing those things which he commanded to proceed from the earth.

(John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis: Volume First, trans. John King, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1948], on Gen. 1:24, p. 90.)

Ronald E. Osborn:

Or how about the literalist claim that if we deny “scientific” creationism on scientific grounds we must also for the sake of full consistency deny the historical resurrection of Christ? This is a complete non sequitur, logically equivalent to saying there can only be fast miracles, not slow ones. “The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower,” G. K. Chesterton wryly observed, “but to see an old gentleman walking through the air in a leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some explanation.” Theistic evolution is, we might say, leisurely creationism.

(Ronald E. Osborn, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014], p. 74.)

Cf. G. K. Chesterton:

If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, He were outside time.

(Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, [London: John Lane, 1912], pp. 58-59.)

C. John Collins:

Well, then, someone might say, suppose that’s just what happened: the “dust” of Genesis 2:7 (“the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground”) was actually the body of some ape or hominid, which God then transformed to be the vehicle of the image of God. I can commend this view as recognizing what must be involved in being human, and in preserving the distinction between man and other animals—a distinction that results from supernatural action.

I can even see how someone might defend this from the meaning of the word “form” in Genesis 2:7—since in Jeremiah 1:5 the same word is used for the natural process of child development in the womb: “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

(C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? [Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003], pp. 268-269.)

J. Oliver Buswell:

…“And Jahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The Hebrew word yatser means to form, but gives no specifications as to the process by which the forming was accomplished. The result is all that is specified.

(J. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion: Volume One, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974], p. 159.)

C. S. Lewis:

For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past.

(C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, [Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1978], p. 65.)

Cf. C. S. Lewis:

For on any view man is in one sense clearly made “out of” something else. He is an animal; but an animal called to be, or raised to be, or (if you like) doomed to be, something more than an animal. On the ordinary biological view (what difficulties I have about evolution are not religious) one of the primates is changed so that he becomes man; but he remains still a primate and an animal. He is taken up into a new life without relinquishing the old. In the same way, all organic life takes up and uses processes merely chemical. But we can trace the principle higher as well as lower. For we are taught that the Incarnation itself proceeded “not by the conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking of (the) manhood into God”; in it human life becomes the vehicle of Divine life. If the Scriptures proceed not by conversion of God’s word into a literature but by taking up of a literature to be the vehicle of God’s word, this is not anomalous.

(C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, [London: Fount, 1977], p. 97.)

Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:47-49:

The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. As one of dust, so are those who are of the dust, and as one of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the one of dust, we will also bear the image of the one of heaven.

(New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition.)

Daniel Worcester Faunce:

If it should ever be proved that, before Adam, there were creatures having man’s physical form, and that at length it pleased God, in Eden, to take this being, whose body centuries before had been “formed out of the dust of the earth,” and then and there to breathe into him a higher kind of life, in which he became endowed with new capacities for moral character, with a new sense of right and wrong, with an immortal and responsible soul—all this would not be in any necessary conflict with the Scripture story. For nothing is said as to how long a time elapsed between the formation of man as a creature of mere body with an animal life in it, and the subsequent inbreathing of a responsible and immortal spirit by which the race became what we see it to-day.

(D. W. Faunce, A Young Man’s Difficulties with His Bible, [New York: Sheldon & Company, 1876], pp. 144-145.)

Arthur James Mason:

Man is at once a summing up of that which was before him, and a point of new departure. The saying, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Gen. i. 26), is in no way opposed to the modern theory of our development (so far as the animal nature is concerned) out of lower forms of life. Indeed, it would be perfectly grammatical to translate, “Let Us make man into Our image”—at once suggesting that a higher potency was conferred on an already existing thing. This, however, is unnecessary. Man became man, whatever he may have been before, by being made in the image of God. That gift constituted his humanity. Out of what material he was thus made is not mentioned in the verse which we have quoted. In another verse, which by some is supposed to contain a different tradition, and has hastily been judged incompatible with the first, we read, “The Lord God formed man, of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. ii. 7). Without disloyalty to these words, we may, in the light of modern discoveries, believe that the dust was already animated dust before the breathing spoken of, and ages may have elapsed between the “forming” and the “breathing.” For the object of the sacred writer is to teach the lowly origin of man’s physical constitution—that on one side he is composed of mere material particles, “of the earth, earthy;” and this is equally shown, whether we believe the first man’s body to have been fresh formed out of its chemical elements, or produced out of earlier living organisms. But we may see a special fitness in the latter thought if man is indeed to be the meeting-point of heaven and earth. Each human being now, they tell us, in the rudimentary stages of his growth, passes through phases similar to those of the lower animals. In a sense, each of us gathers up and recapitulates in his own body the forms of life below him. And that which thus takes place in the specimen may well be true of the genus. We welcome the continuity of physical life which binds us to all that went before us and to all that on earth surrounds us. The body which is the result of that long evolution is one of which we have no need to be ashamed. It is itself a noble thing. It is not yet all that it will be, but even now it has something of the glory of the Image of God, being the true expression in flesh of that which man at present really is.

(Arthur James Mason, The Faith of the Gospel: A Manual of Christian Doctrine, Third Edition, Revised, [New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1891], pp. 95-96.)

John R. W. Stott:

…my acceptance of Adam and Eve as historical is not incompatible with my belief that several forms of pre-Adamic hominid may have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them homo erectus. I think you may even call some of them homo sapiens, for these are arbitrary scientific names. But Adam was the first homo divinus, if I may coin a phrase, the first man to whom may be given the Biblical designation ‘made in the image of God’. Precisely what the divine likeness was, which was stamped upon him, we do not know, for Scripture nowhere tells us. But Scripture seems to suggest that it includes rational, moral, social, and spiritual faculties which make man unlike all other creatures and like God the creator, and on account of which he was given ‘dominion’ over the lower creation.

(John R. W. Stott, Understanding the Bible: Revised Edition, [London: Scripture Union, 1993], p. 49.)

Note: Cf. C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2011]. Preview.

5. Theodicy. Return to Outline.

Isaiah 55:8-9:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

(New International Version.)

Note: Anthropomorphization, from the greek άνθρωπος (human) — from which we get the word anthropology (the study of the origin and development of human societies and cultures) — and μορφή (shape or form) — from which we derive the term morphology (the study of form). Anthropomorphization is the projection of the human form (traits, characteristics, etc.) onto non-human entities — e.g. the teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast (teapots cannot walk about or talk, humans can).

We must be careful to avoid anthropomorphizing God when dealing with apparent suffering and cruelty in the world. Just because I, in my fallen human finitude, cannot perceive how suffering (in any form) might ultimately bring about a greater good, does not mean that an infinitely wise and powerful creator could/does not.

Denis O. Lamoureux:

Have you ever had a horrendous experience, one so bad that you’d never wish it upon your enemies? And now years later, when you look back at this event, can you say that there was something “good” about it, and that you’re even “glad” you went through it? If you answer yes to both of these questions, like most people do, then your theodicy features two contrasting components held in an intellectual tension. This is essentially how I have come to terms with the God of Love creating a very good world through a ruthless evolutionary process.

(Denis O. Lamoureux, I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009], p. 159.)

Cf. John 9:1-3:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

(New International Version.)

Note: See further: Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020], Chapter Four: “In Praise of Ashes and Dung,” pp. 151-182. Preview.

6. Common Descent and the Dignity of Humanity. Return to Outline.

Theodosius Dobzhansky: (One of the most prominent evolutionary biologists of the 20th century)

It has become almost a commonplace that Darwin’s discovery of biological evolution completed the downgrading and estrangement of man begun by Copernicus and Galileo. I can scarcely imagine a judgment more mistaken. Perhaps the central point to be argued in this book is that the opposite is true. Evolution is a source of hope for man. To be sure, modern evolutionism has not restored the earth to the position of the center of the universe. However, while the universe is surely not geocentric, it may conceivably be anthropocentric.

(Theodosius Dobzhansky, The Biology of Ultimate Concern, [New York: The New American Library, 1967], p. 7.)

Cf. Simon Conway Morris: (Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge)

Contrary to popular belief, the science of evolution does not belittle us.

(Simon Conway Morris, Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005], p. xv.)

Cf. Robert Wesson: (Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California)

The way we have come about does not prove the emptiness of humanity. It is less likely that we are an accidental product of an indifferent universe, as mechanistic philosophy would have it, or insignificant survival machines for genes, as sociobiology asserts, than that the richness of nature and the human achievement show the fallacy of the philosophy. If there is what may be called a spiritual component in humans, evolution cannot have been a wholly mechanistic process (Bowler 1989, 8).

(Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, [Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993], p. 305.)

Conor Cunningham:

To find the idea of common ancestry repulsive says more about one’s ontological pride than it does about Darwinism. What is wrong with matter? Why do we wish instead to be angels? For as God asked in the book of Genesis, “Who told you that you were naked?” (3:11), which is maybe to say, who told you that you were merely material or, more importantly, that matter was mere?

(Conor Cunningham, Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get it Wrong, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010], p. 23)

Steven C. Kuhl:

Gnosticism is a creation-denying spirituality in that it identifies essential humanity, not with the created world, but with the divine itself. In my judgment, the fact that many “Christians” today find the idea of “common descent” objectionable is due not to a genuine biblical, catholic and orthodox understanding of Christianity, but to the fact that “Christian Gnosticism” has once again reemerged in the hearts and minds of many people.

(Steven C. Kuhl, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea . . . and St. Paul’s: God, Humanity, Responsibility, Meaning in the Light of Evolutionary Findings;” In: Creation and Evolution: Proceedings of the ITEST Workshop, October, 1997, eds. R. Brungs, M. Postiglione, [St. Louis: ITEST Faith/Science Press, 1998], p. 93.) Preview.

Daryl P. Domning:

When we disavow any genealogical relationship to “mere animals,” in other words, we are implicitly denying that we (we spiritual beings!) are really part of God’s material creation. Actually, this idea of the Gnostics (that the human body is alien to the human personality or soul) can be traced still further back, indeed to Plato and the Neoplatonics, who had great influence on early Christian thought, especially that of the Greek Fathers. Like that other Platonic notion, essentialism, this one too is opposed to Darwinism — and to the orthodox, incarnational Christian faith. It is supremely ironic that such a dualistic, unbiblical stance should be taken by biblical literalists who insist on the importance to Christianity of the Genesis creation account — which unequivocally affirms that we were formed “out of the clay of the ground.” (Genesis 2:7)

Ultimately, of course, whenever we allow ourselves concern over affronts to our dignity (whether as individuals or as a species), we are flirting with the sin of pride, rather than practicing the Christian virtue of humility (let alone imaging a humble God). But this is a moral issue on which evolution (contrary to fundamentalist opinion) is neutral. Biblical literalists feel that descent from “mere animals” diminishes our dignity; but the implications of evolution really cut both ways. For which is more flattering to my ego: to think that in making my species, the Creator spent only an instant (or six days at best); or to think that God was willing to devote over thirteen billion years to the task of bringing me into existence?

The Hasidic teacher Rabbi Simcha Bunam of Peshischa said, “A spiritual seeker should carry two stones in a pocket. On one should be inscribed, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’ On the other, ‘For my sake was the world created.’ And the seeker should use each stone as needed.”

(Daryl P. Domning, Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution, [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006], p. 60.)

7. B. B. Warfield. Return to Outline.

B. B. Warfield:

We raise no question as to the compatibility of the Darwinian form of the hypothesis of evolution with Christianity…

(B. B. Warfield, “Charles Darwin’s Religious Life: A Sketch in Spiritual Biography;” In: The Presbyterian Review: Volume IX: 1888, No. 36, October, [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888], p. 575.)

B. B. Warfield:

The question of the unity of the human race differs from the question of its antiquity in that it is of indubitable theological importance. It is not merely that the Bible teaches it, while, as we have sought to show, it has no teaching upon the antiquity of the race. It is also the postulate of the entire body of the Bible’s teaching — of its doctrine of Sin and Redemption alike: so that the whole structure of the Bible’s teaching, including all that we know as its doctrine of salvation, rests on it and implicates it. There have been times, nevertheless, when it has been vigorously assailed, from various motives, from within as well as from without the Church, and the resources of Christian reasoning have been taxed to support it. These times have now, however, definitely passed away. The prevalence of the evolutionary hypotheses has removed all motive for denying a common origin to the human race, and rendered it natural to look upon the differences which exist among the various types of man as differentiations of a common stock. The motive for denying their conclusiveness having been thus removed, the convincing evidences of the unity of the race have had opportunity to assert their force. The result is that the unity of the race, in the sense of its common origin, is no longer a matter of debate; and although actually some erratic writers may still speak of it as open to discussion, they are not taken seriously, and practically it is universally treated as a fixed fact that mankind in all its varieties is one, as in fundamental characteristics, so also in origin.

In our natural satisfaction over this agreement between Scripture and modern science with respect to the unity of humanity, we must not permit ourselves to forget that there has always nevertheless existed among men a strong tendency to deny this unity in the interests of racial pride.

(B. B. Warfield, “On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race;” In: The Princeton Theological Review: Volume IX: 1911, Number 1, January 1911, [Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1911], pp. 18-19.)

B. B. Warfield:

It should scarcely be passed without remark that Calvin’s doctrine of creation is, if we have understood it aright, for all except the souls of men, an evolutionary one. The “indigested mass,” including the “promise and potency” of all that was yet to be, was called into being by the simple fiat of God. But all that has come into being since — except the souls of men alone — has arisen as a modification of this original world-stuff by means of the interaction of its intrinsic forces. Not these forces apart from God, of course: Calvin is a high theist, that is, supernaturalist, in his ontology of the universe and in his conception of the whole movement of the universe. To him God is the prima causa omnium and that not merely in the sense that all things ultimately — in the world-stuff — owe their existence to God; but in the sense that all the modifications of the world-stuff have taken place under the directly upholding and governing hand of God, and find their account ultimately in His will. But they find their account proximately in “second causes”; and this is not only evolutionism but pure evolutionism. What account we give of these second causes is a matter of ontology; how we account for their existence, their persistence, their action — the relation we conceive them to stand in to God, the upholder and director as well as creator of them. Calvin’s ontology of second causes was, briefly stated, a very pure and complete doctrine of concursus, by virtue of which he ascribed all that comes to pass to God’s purpose and directive government. But that does not concern us here. What concerns us here is that he ascribed the entire series of modifications by which the primal “indigested mass,” called “heaven and earth,” has passed into the form of the ordered world which we see, including the origination of all forms of life, vegetable and animal alike, inclusive doubtless of the bodily form of man, to second causes as their proximate account. And this, we say, is a very pure evolutionary scheme. He does not discuss, of course, the factors of the evolutionary process, nor does he attempt to trace the course of the evolutionary advance, nor even expound the nature of the secondary causes by which it was wrought. It is enough for him to say that God said, “Let the waters bring forth. . . . Let the earth bring forth,” and they brought forth. Of the interaction of forces by which the actual production of forms was accomplished, he had doubtless no conception: he certainly ventures no assertions in this field. How he pictured the process in his imagination (if he pictured it in his imagination) we do not know. But these are subordinate matters. Calvin doubtless had no theory whatever of evolution; but he teaches a doctrine of evolution. He has no object in so teaching except to preserve to the creative act, properly so called, its purity as an immediate production out of nothing. All that is not immediately produced out of nothing is therefore not created — but evolved. Accordingly his doctrine of evolution is entirely unfruitful. The whole process takes place in the limits of six natural days. That the doctrine should be of use as an explanation of the mode of production of the ordered world, it was requisite that these six days should be lengthened out into six periods — six ages of the growth of the world. Had that been done Calvin would have been a precursor of the modern evolutionary theorists. As it is, he only forms a point of departure for them to this extent — that he teaches, as they teach, the modification of the original world-stuff into the varied forms which constitute the ordered world, by the instrumentality of second causes — or as a modern would put it, of its intrinsic forces. This is his account of the origin of the entire lower creation.[fn. 45: H. Bavinck in the first of his Stone Lectures (“The Philosophy of Revelation,” 1909, pp. 9-10) remarks: “The idea of development is not a production of modern times. It was already familiar to Greek philosophy. More particularly Aristotle raised it to the rank of the leading principle of his entire system by his significant distinction between potentia and actus. . . . This idea of development aroused no objection whatever in Christian theology and philosophy. On the contrary, it received extension and enrichment by being linked with the principle of theism.” Calvin accordingly very naturally thought along the lines of a theistic evolutionism.]

(B. B. Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Creation,” The Princeton Theological Review: Volume: XIII: 1915, pp. 208-210; In: Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism, [New York: Oxford University Press, 1931], pp. 304-306.)

Note: Cf. Augustine’s understanding of Rationes Seminales. See: Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology: The 2009 Gifford Lectures, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009], pp. 101-108.

Cf. Tony Lane:

Augustine, expounding Genesis in the light of the science of his day, taught an instantaneous creation ex nihilo of a universe containing ‘seedlike principles’ which contain the potential for the later development of living things. This suggests that were Augustine to be living today he would not find it hard to accept the theory of evolution.

(Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], p. 65.) Preview.

Cf. Gavin Ortlund:

Much in Augustine’s theology is favorable to harmonization efforts in the realm of instinct three (Adam and evolution).

(Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020], p. 239.)

Note: Cf. Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020], pp. 187ff.) Preview.

Cf. Bernard Ramm:

Augustine suggested that God sowed seminal principles in Nature or matter and they taking root, as it were, developed the world of animals and plants. God, Augustine so argued, did not create things directly, but created them in seminal form. From seminal form, under the guidance of God, the final creatures were realized. Modern Catholic writers teach that evolution was the modus operandi whereby these seeds became forms. Again the result is a theory of evolution which is spiritualistic and teleological.

(Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955], pp. 263-264.)

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

B. B. Warfield:

I am free to say, for myself, that I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution. The sole passage which appears to bar the way is the very detailed account of the creation of Eve. It is possible that this may be held to be a miracle (as Dr. Woodrow holds), or else that the narrative may be held to be partial and taken like the very partial descriptions of the formation of the individual in Job and the Psalms; that is, it teaches only the general fact that Eve came of Adam’s flesh and bone. Neither view seems natural. And we may as well admit that the account of the creation of Eve is a very serious bar in the way of a doctrine of creation by evolution.

The upshot of the whole matter is that there is no necessary antagonism of Christianity to evolution, provided that we do not hold to too extreme a form of evolution. To adopt any form that does not permit God freely to work apart from law and that does not allow miraculous intervention (in the giving of the soul, in creating Eve, etc.) will entail a great reconstruction of Christian doctrine, and a very great lowering of the detailed authority of the Bible. But if we condition the theory by allowing the constant oversight of God in the whole process, and his occasional supernatural interference for the production of new beginnings by an actual output of creative force, producing something new, i.e., something not included even in posse [potentially] in preceding conditions, we may hold to the modified theory of evolution and be Christians in the ordinary orthodox sense.

I say we may do this. Whether we ought to accept evolution, even in this modified sense, is another matter, and I leave it purposely an open question.

(B. B. Warfield, “Evolution or Development,” December 12, 1888; In: B. B. Warfield, Evolution, Scripture, and Science: Selected Writings, eds. Mark A. Noll, David N. Livingstone, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2019], pp. 130-131.) Preview.

B. B. Warfield:

What, then, is to be the attitude of the Christian man toward the modern doctrine of “evolution?” He is certainly to deny with all the energy given to him that the conception of “evolution” can take the place of that of “creation” as an account of the origin of the universe. “Evolution” offers no solution of the question of origins. For its operation it presupposes not only a somewhat already existent which can unroll into fresh forms, but a somewhat within which all that is subsequently evolved already potentially exists. And he is to deny with equal strenuousness that the conception of “evolution” can take the place of that of “mediate creation,” as an account of the origination of new somewhats in the course of the divine government of the world. Things have come into being since the first origin of the world which did not lie potentially within the primal worldstuff, needing only to be educed from it. If nothing else, the God-Man has come into being: and that not as the product of precedent conditions in the world, but as an intrusion from without and above. And with him, the whole series of events that constitute the supernatural order of the Kingdom of God. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the same intrusion of purely creative force, productive of something absolutely new, may have occurred also in the natural order of the first creation—say at the origination of self-conscious, immortal beings in the complex of nature. On the other hand, the Christian man has as such no quarrel with “evolution” when confined to its own sphere as a suggested account of the method of the Divine Providence. What he needs to insist on is merely that Providence cannot do the work of creation and is not to be permitted to intrude itself into the sphere of creation, much less to crowd creation out of the recognition of man, merely because it puts itself forward under the new name of “evolution.”

(B. B. Warfield, “Creation Versus Evolution;” In: The Bible Student: Volume IV: Number 1: July, 1901, [Columbia: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1901], p. 8.)

B. B. Warfield:

If it is meant that at the formation of Adam there was an act of absolute creation, producing the immortal spirit, which accompanied the derivative creation by virtue of which his body was formed (not created) from the lower animals: or that at the birth of every human being there is an act of absolute creation of the soul, accompanying the act of “derivative creation” by which the body is derived from its parents,—Dr. Zahm is really allowing here for the category of “mediate creation” of the old divines without being aware of it, a category standing between his “absolute creation” by which an origin is given to the world and his “derivative creation” by means of which God’s providence leads second causes to the production of effects level to their power indeed but wrought only in accord with His will.

(B. B. Warfield, “Creation Versus Evolution;” In: The Bible Student: Volume IV: Number 1: July, 1901, [Columbia: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1901], p. 7.)

Cf. B. B. Warfield:

Some striking minor points in Dr. Orr’s should also be mentioned. Among these is his suggestion (p. 152) of the impossibility of disparate development of mind and body, with the inference he draws from it that, therefore, it can scarcely be credited that the body of man was formed by the accumulation of insensible variations from a brutish original, and the soul made all at once by a divine fiat for the completed man. Body and mind must go together: and a great brain with a little mind is just as unthinkable as a little brain with a great mind. The argument does not seem to be available, however, as against a theory of evolution per saltum. If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation from brutish parents, it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it should be provided by His creative energy with a truly human soul.

(Benjamin B. Warfield, “Systematic Theology;” In: The Princeton Theological Review: Volume IV: 1906, [Philadelphia: MacCalla & Co. Inc., 1906], pp. 556-556.)

8. Additional Quotations from Christian Thinkers. Return to Outline.

Charles Hodge:

…the doctrine of development, or derivation of species, may be held in a form consistent with theism. This no one denies.

(Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume II, [London and Edinburg: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1872], p. 18.)

B. B. Warfield:

We raise no question as to the compatibility of the Darwinian form of the hypothesis of evolution with Christianity…

A. A. Hodge:

All possible theories of Evolution, considered in their relation to theology, may be classified thus: (1.) Those which neither deny nor obscure the evidence which the order and adaptation observed in nature afford to the existence of God, and his immanence in and providential control of his works. (2.) Those which, while recognizing God as the original source in the remote past, to which the origination and the primary adjustments of the universe are to be referred, yet deny his immanence and constant providential activity in his works (3.) Those which professedly or virtually obscure or deny the evidence afforded by the order and adaptation of the universe for the existence and activity of God alike as Creator and as Providential Ruler.

With the first class of Evolution theories the Natural Theologian has, of course, only the most friendly interest. …if continuous evolution could be proved as a fact, the significance of the evidence of intelligent order and contrivance would not be in the least affected. It would only establish a method or system of means, but could in no degree alter the nature of the effect, nor the attributes of the real cause disclosed by them.

(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology: Rewritten and Enlarged, [New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1878], pp. 39, 40.)

Abraham Kuyper:

An entirely different problem is that so often discussed in England whether religion permits, as such, the spontaneous evolvement of the species in the organic world from one single primary cell. That question, of course, without reservation, must be answered in the affirmative. We should not impose our style upon the Chief Architect of the universe. Provided he remains, not in appearance, but in essence, the Architect, he is also in the choice of his style of architecture the Omnipotent. If it thus had pleased the Lord not to create the species as such, but to have one species arise from the other, by designing the preceding species in such a way that it could produce the next higher, the creation would have been just as wonderful. But this never would have been the evolution of Darwinism because the predetermined plan [Zeweck] would not then have been excluded, but would have been all predominating, and not the world had then built itself up mechanically, but God by means of elements which He himself prepared for that purpose. The contrast shows itself most clearly from an illustration selected by Haeckel. In order to remove the objection that is inherent in the mechanical explanation of a complex organism, he asks whether a Zulu Negro, who at Lorenzo Marquez sees an English armored battleship enter, would not certainly view this colossus as an organic monster, while we, of course, know very well that it has been riveted together mechanically. Everyone naturally agrees with this. But Haeckel overlooked the fact that in the shipyard the steel plates did not place themselves in the proper position, but that they have been put together by a skillful architect according to a previously prepared plan. And that same difference would differentiate such a divine evolutionistic creation from the system of the Darwinists. Evolutionistic creation presupposes a God who has first made the plan and then executes it omnipotently. Darwinism teaches the mechanical origin of things that excludes all plan or purpose or draft.

(Abraham Kuyper, Evolutie, [Rectorale Oratie, Vrije Universiteit, 1899], pp. 46-48; trans. Jan Lever, Creation and Evolution, trans. Peter G. Berkhout, [Grand Rapids: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1958], p. 229.)

Andrew E. Hill, John H. Walton:

How did God create? The text emphasizes the spoken word of God, but some have felt this does not rule out the possibilty [sic] that God could have set in motion an evolutionary sequence. Those who reject this possibility contend that God’s function as Creator must be intended, if nothing else, to emphasize his sovereign control. They see this control threatened by the random, arbitrary, and chance nature of the processes included in evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, one could likewise argue that the weather is random, arbitrary, and subject to chance, yet that is not thought of as undermining God’s sovereign control of his creation. To the extent to which evolution is defined in exclusively naturalistic ways, it is unacceptable to the theology of Genesis, because creation, by the insistence of Scripture, is supernaturalistic.

(Andrew E. Hill, John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991], p. 102.)

Note: Weather appears random to our limited understanding, yet it is governed by God’s providence. So too evolution.

Anthony (Tony) Lane:

How does the Bible relate to modern scientific theories of evolution? Modern science talks of a process of evolution, which gave rise to homo habilis some two to four million years ago, which led to further evolution towards homo sapiens. Some 10-12,000 years ago there was the rise of agriculture, which made civilization possible.

How accurate is this picture? I do not know. It is based on very fragmentary evidence and it is likely that it will be revised in due course. How does it cohere with Genesis 1-2? These chapters are to be seen neither as literal scientific history nor as myth, but rather as an account of human origins in figurative language.[n. 6: For an excellent account of this, see H. Blocher In the Beginning. Leicester: IVP, 1984.] What matters for Christian doctrine is that there is a decisive point at which human beings in the image of God come into being. Chimpanzees are not made in God’s image; we are. When did the change occur? How did it happen? Was there special intervention by God? Such questions may be of interest but they are not crucial for the doctrine of creation. Personally I am happy to remain agnostic on such details.

(Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], p. 64.) Preview.

Cf. Anthony (Tony) Lane:

There are many issues involved here. Some have questioned how the ‘survival of the fittest’ is compatible with Christianity, but that this is how nature functions is beyond dispute. Others claim that the Bible blames all of the evil in the world on human sin, which is awkward if humanity has only appeared recently in cosmic history. We will consider that further in Chapter 8. It is worth noting that Augustine, expounding Genesis in the light of the science of his day, taught an instantaneous creation ex nihilo of a universe containing ‘seedlike principles’ which contain the potential for the later development of living things.[n. 7: Augustine The Literal Meaning of Genesis, as expounded by A. E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009, 101–108.] This suggests that were Augustine to be living today he would not find it hard to accept the theory of evolution.[n. 8: For more on this issue, see Collins The Language of God, 145–211.]

(Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], pp. 64-65.) Preview.

Bernard Ramm:

Types of evolutionary theory. The overwhelming number of Fundamentalist articles, booklets, and books on evolution which we have read set the scene for discussion of biology as follows: (i) a man believes in fiat, immediate creation; (ii) or he subscribes to atheistic, ungodly evolution; or (iii), in a condition of mental weakness and intellectual confusion, he believes in theistic evolution. The facts of the case are not so simple. There are many types of evolution. We do not refer to such theories as orthogenesis or nomogenesis, nor to macromutations or micromutations, but to the larger interpretations of the philosophy of biology.

1. There is without question an antichristian version of the theory of evolution. Evolution has been used by atheists and naturalists and materialists to bolster their metaphysics and to club the orthodox. Dialectical materialism, the official philosophy of Russia, glories in evolution as the scientific doctrine of creation which frees man from faith in God. Evolution has been used to support atheism, ethical nihilism, and much anti-God, anti-Bible, and antichristian thought. …With this form of the theory of evolution, or with this use of the theory of evolution, evangelical Christianity will always be at war.

…2. However, evolution is not always set in a materialistic or atheistic or naturalistic or positivistic setting. That evolution has aided antichristian systems of thought no informed person can doubt; but that it has also been turned to other purposes, no informed person can doubt either. There are several forms of a spiritualistic interpretation of evolution.

…a) There is the modern Thomistic interpretation of evolution constructed on the philosophy of Aristotle as formulated by Aquinas. Evolution is but the modus operandi by which the ideas or forms or universals are realized in the animal and plant world. God as the cause of all motion is the spiritual and intelligent force behind evolution, and evolution occurs solely because there is a God, and because Nature is constituted in the terms described by Aquinas.

…(b) Augustine suggested that God sowed seminal principles in Nature or matter and they taking root, as it were, developed the world of animals and plants. God, Augustine so argued, did not create things directly, but created them in seminal form. From seminal form, under the guidance of God, the final creatures were realized. Modern Catholic writers teach that evolution was the modus operandi whereby these seeds became forms.

…c) The theory of emergent evolution has been developed by men who reject the crass materialistic interpretation of evolution. These men believe that life arose miraculously and that mind appeared miraculously, and that from original life to mind, life kept emerging on higher and higher levels. By recombination due to the God-imparted nissus within Nature, life passed upward into more complex forms. The new levels were not reached by chance evolution but were sudden and novel appearances. In that the whole is more than the sum of its parts the new form with a certain rearrangement of old parts is a very new creature.

…f) Finally, just to mention them, for we shall say more about them later, there are evangelical Christians who have espoused theistic evolution, and see no incompatibility between this acceptance and their Christian faith. Asa Gray, James McCosh, James Orr and A. H. Strong were all evangelical believers who accepted theistic evolution. Benjamin Warfield in a carefully guarded statement seemed to teach that if evolution were properly defined, he would not be adverse to it. It must also be kept in mind that orthodox Catholic theologians with just as high a view of inspiration as evangelical Protestants, and with just as much at stake in theology, also believe in theistic evolution, not to mention orthodox Jewish believers. Religious modernists and neo-orthodox thinkers almost to a man have accepted theistic evolution and see no incompatibility in accepting evolution with their theistic metaphysics.

These various interpretations indicate that the dilemma of fiat creationism versus atheistic evolution, into which the Fundamentalist tries to force the issue, is not possible. It is not fiat creationism or atheistic evolution (with theistic creationism as a sterile hybrid), but there is also progressive creationism, and evolution interpreted in the larger framework of a theistic or spiritualistic or idealistic metaphysics.

(Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955], pp. 261-262, 262, 262-263, 263, 263-264, 264, 264-265.)

C. John Collins:

So where are we at this point? I have argued that traditional Christian faith opposes, not all ideas of evolution, but biological evolution-as-the-big-picture, with neo-Darwinism as its best representative. The reason my faith opposes it is that my faith leads me to believe that life and mankind—to mention the two most solid examples—result from special or supernatural works of God; while on the other hand, neo-Darwinism claims to have found an unbroken pathway from molecules to mankind, along strictly natural lines. Not only do these two ways of thinking make conflicting claims, but also neo-Darwinism stems from a philosophical commitment to a naturalistic view of the world, which excludes what has been called “design.”

(C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? [Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003], p. 282.)

C. S. Lewis:

Century by century God has guided nature up to the point of producing creatures which can (if they will) be taken right out of nature, turned into ‘gods’.

(C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, [London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2002], p. 222.)

Cf. C. S. Lewis:

I am not in the least denying that organisms on this planet may have ‘evolved.’ But if we are to be guided by the analogy of Nature as we know her, it would be reasonable to suppose that this evolutionary process was the second half of a long pattern—that the crude beginnings of life on this planet have themselves been ‘dropped’ there by a full and perfect life.

(C. S. Lewis, “The Funeral of a Great Myth;” In: C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1977], p. 91.)

Cf. C. S. Lewis:

To the biologist Evolution is a hypothesis. It covers more of the facts than any other hypothesis at present on the market and is therefore to be accepted unless, or until, some new supposal can be shown to cover still more facts with even fewer assumptions.

(C. S. Lewis, “The Funeral of a Great Myth;” In: C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1967], p. 85.)

D. G. Hart, John R. Muether:

Darwin’s views were atheistic. But a conception of evolution that affirmed God’s superintendence through providence was different from Darwin’s views. And that is why Warfield took the position he did. He was by no means naive; he did not think that most scientists were theists, nor was he unaware of the anti-Christian uses to which evolution was being put. His point was only to say that a Christian understanding of the process made room for a theistic account of biological evolution. Machen merely continued in the tradition, denying atheistic explanations, while affirming Warfield’s view.

What is especially interesting to note is that all of these Princeton divines affirmed the inerrancy of Scripture while debating the merits of evolution. Warfield’s position is probably the most remarkable since his formulation of inerrancy was one of the most profound articulations of the Westminster Confession’s doctrine of Scripture. And yet, given his understanding of biblical authority and infallibility, he, like Hodge before him, did not regard evolution as a threat to the truthfulness of specific portions of the Bible, especially Genesis 1-3. Warfield even affirmed the literal and historic creation of Eve from the rib of Adam. He was not trying to circumvent the difficult passages of Scripture. Instead, the issue for Princeton was the general one of God’s authority over and superintendence of all things. For them, evolution raised questions about design in nature, not the truthfulness of the Bible.

For this reason the Old Princeton position on evolution fits right in with current debates among scientists. Rather than discrediting scientific theories on the basis of biblical exegesis, some Christian as well as non-Christian scientists are arguing forcefully, à la Hodge, Warfield, and Machen, that notions like chance and necessity are insufficient on scientific grounds to account for the world as we know it. Instead, they contend that the only adequate account of the created order, given its sheer scope and complexity, is intelligent design. Indeed, the debate over design is one of the most fiercely contested in the biological community. Christians interested in science should well take note of these discussions. To be sure, considerations of design in nature will not resolve questions about how to interpret the first chapters of Genesis, prove the existence of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or substantiate the ancient Hebrew cosmology which Moses assumed. But they offer a better opportunity for credibly engaging the scientific community and meaningfully defending the truth of Christianity than the one now promoted by scientific creationists.

(D. G. Hart, John R. Muether, “Inerrancy or Design? Old Princeton and Evolution,” p. 6; In: Ordained Servant, Vol. 9, No. 1, [January 2000]: 4-6.) Online.

Deborah B. Haarsma & Loren D. Haarsma:

Recent Ancestors: Adam and Eve were specially created about 10,000 years ago and were the first humans. All humans today have descended from them.

Recent Representatives: God created humans about 150,000 years ago using progressive or evolutionary creation, and God specially selected a pair of humans about 10,000 years ago to act as humanity’s representatives. They chose to sin and their sinful status was applied to all humans.

Pair of Ancient Ancestors: God used natural mechanisms to create pre-human hominids; then about 150,000 years ago God miraculously modified a pair of them into the first humans, Adam and Eve. All humans today have descended from this pair.

Group of Ancient Representatives: God created humans about 150,000 years ago using evolutionary creation, and God specially selected a particular group and revealed himself to them. They chose to sin and their sinful status was applied to all humans.

Symbolic: God created humans about 150,000 years ago using evolutionary creation. No particular single event occurred where all humans fell into sin at the same time, but many events happened where various individuals and groups rebelled against God.

(Deborah B. Haarsma, Loren D. Haarsma, Origins: A Reformed Look at Creation, Design, & Evolution, [Grand Rapids: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2007], p. 197.)

Cf. Kenneth D. Keathley & Mark F. Rooker:

In this chapter we survey the positions taken by evolutionary creationists who join Keller in his concern and who try to present models that retain Adam and Eve as real persons. These proposals can be grouped under three headings: (1) Adam was a recent hominid (about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago) whom God chose to be both the biological origin and federal head of the human race, (2) Adam was an ancient hominid (about 100,000 to 150,000 years ago) whom God chose to be the biological origin and federal head of humanity, and (3) Adam was a recent hominid (about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago) whom God chose to be the federal head but not the biological ancestor of all humanity.

(Kenneth D. Keathley, Mark F. Rooker, 40 Questions About Creation and Evolution, [Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2014], pp. 378-379.) Preview.

Denis Alexander:

Ironically, young-earth creationists agree with Dawkins! The opposite extremes in a debate are often more similar than either pole is ready to admit. Those Christians who interpret the early chapters of Genesis as if they represent science are playing right into Dawkins’s hands, because by confusing theology with science they are setting up a false antithesis that suits Dawkins’s agenda perfectly. Yet as we noted in Chapter 2, in the section ‘Does the Bible teach science?’, it is more appropriate to see the biblical text as providing the theological narrative, answering questions about God’s dealings with people and the world, rather than pressing scientific meanings upon a narrative never intended to bear such meaning.

A better route to follow is that adopted by those Bible-believing Christians of an earlier era, such as B.B. Warfield, Asa Gray and James McCosh, who saw themselves as evolutionary creationists, believers who fully accepted the authority of Scripture and the biblical doctrine of creation, but who traced God’s providential purposes and handiwork throughout the long evolutionary process. For as already outlined in Chapter 2, Christians believe in a God who is intimately involved in every aspect of the created order. Scientists may have plenty of gaps in their understanding of what God has done and continues to do in his creation, but there are no gaps when it comes to God’s interaction with the world. Think of creation like one great book. Running through the text is an evolutionary narrative thread, which describes how God brought biological diversity into being and continues to sustain it all moment by moment. There are many other narratives running through the book also – the histories of the nations, the account of God’s own people and indeed our own biographies. Theologically these represent different aspects of God’s sovereign creative actions in the world. Certainly God’s great work in creation is distinct from his wonderful plan of redemption, but the point here is that the whole book is God’s book. The various narratives running through the book all stem from the same author. The evolutionary creationist is one who has a very firm belief in God’s sovereignty over the whole created order, worked out in his plan and purposes for both creation and redemption.

(Denis R. Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? Second Edition, Revised and Updated, [Oxford: Monarch Books, 2014], pp. 212-213.)

Note: See further: General Revelation (The “Book” of Nature—Science and Scripture).

Francis S. Collins:

…theistic evolution is the dominant position of serious biologists who are also serious believers.

(Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, [New York: Free Press, 2007], p. 199.)

Gavin Ortlund:

Much in Augustine’s theology is favorable to harmonization efforts in the realm of instinct three (Adam and evolution).

(Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020], p. 239.)

Cf. Gavin Ortlund:

The notion that the Adam and evolution hypotheses might actually help explain some of the peculiarities of Genesis 1-4 will likely provoke those who regard such readings as constituting the abandonment of a historical reading of Genesis. But we must be wary of too simple a choice between historicity and symbol. Many conservative exegetes affirm the historicity of the text while recognizing a symbolical, pictorial thrust to much of its language.

(Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020], p. 229.) Preview.

Note: See further: Cosmology (As a Literary Genre—Myths/History).

Gijsbert van den Brink:

Christian believers do not have to resist evolutionary theory because of their faith commitments; and non-Christians don’t have to think that in order to become a Christian they should do the impossible, that is, renounce something that is so evidently true to them as Darwinian evolution.

(Gijsbert van den Brink, Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2020], p. 274.) Preview.

Hendrikus Berkhof:

Connecting the Christian belief in creation with this world view is certainly no more difficult than connecting it with the ancient Babylonian or the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world view. In fact, we must even say that it is easier to link it to the notion of evolution than to the static Ptolemaic world view. After all, the doctrine of evolution makes a great historical process of what we call nature, a process leading to the phenomenon man, and so continuing in man, leading in a new way toward a new and open future. In the Bible creation and history are similarly connected. In Genesis 1 creation is set forth as a historical process taking six days—we would say taking the form of an evolutionary process—and so prefigures the history of redemption which reaches toward the eschatological future. This does not mean the obliteration of the difference between belief in creation and the theory of evolution. The creation faith contains as such no information about the manner in which God called the world into existence. And, conversely, the theory of evolution has no answer to the question as to the sense and purpose of that turbulent process which billions of years ago likely began with a massive, chaotic gas cloud. The believer who accepts the evolutionary view regards it as the description of the phenomenal outside of the creation event—for the time being, for later it may turn out that other models are needed with which to speak about the origin of the universe. The vocabulary of the creation faith can as such be connected with all kinds of scientific vocabularies which can underline, concretize, and illustrate it; but what this faith speaks of remains independent of all these modes of expression.

(Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith: Revised Edition, trans. Sierd Woudstra, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990], p. 179.)

J. Gresham Machen:

What was the origin of the human life of this man, Jesus? Was he descended from previous men by ordinary generation? Was he a product of evolution?

Well, if we had only the kind of evidence that is relied upon to establish the doctrine of evolution with regard to the origin of the first man, we should certainly answer that question in the affirmative; we should certainly say that Jesus of Nazareth most assuredly was descended from previous men by ordinary generation. He did not make upon anyone the impression of being at all abnormal in His appearance. He was amazingly different, indeed, from other men in His character, and in His powers. But I really do not think that there is much doubt but that, if His body as it was when He lived on earth were still somewhere upon earth – which, as a matter of fact, it is not – and if some archaeologist or geologist should discover remains of it in the rocks or in the soil, those remains would show the most thoroughgoing similarity to the bodily structure of previous men.

What inference would be drawn from that if the same kind of reasoning were used as the reasoning which is used when evolutionists argue for the descent of the first man from other forms of animal life? Why, the inference would be drawn that of course Jesus was descended by ordinary generation from the men who lived before Him on the earth. The evidence of continuity of bodily descent, which in the case of the first man is, after all, very far indeed from being complete, since, to say the least, there are enormous gaps between the remains of man and the remains of other forms of animal life, would in the case of the man Jesus seem to be absolutely complete. The proof would seem to be overwhelming.

Yet, despite all that evidence, we hold, on the testimony of the first chapter of Matthew and the first chapter of Luke, that Jesus was not as a matter of fact descended from previous men by ordinary generation, but that at the beginning of His life upon this earth there was a creative act of God, the supernatural conception in the womb of the virgin Mary. Not even the body of Jesus, to say nothing of His human soul, was produced, then, according to our belief, merely by evolution, merely by ordinary generation in the ordinary course of nature, but it was produced also by a supernatural act of God. There you have an instance of special creation right in the full light of historical times.

(J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man, [London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965], Ch. 10: Did God Create Man? pp. 120-121.)

Cf. J. Gresham Machen:

Similarity of bodily structure between Jesus and the men who lived before Him on the earth is admitted by everyone. Yet despite that similarity of bodily structure, we hold, on the basis of what we regard as adequate testimony, that Jesus was not descended from previous mankind by ordinary generation, but that at the origin of His human life there was an entrance, into the course of the world, of the immediate power of God.

But if there was an entrance of the immediate power of God in connection with the origin of the human life of Jesus, why may there not have been also an entrance of the immediate power of God in the case of the first man who ever appeared upon the earth? If similarity of bodily structure does not disprove the occurrence of the miracle in the one case, why should it do so in the other?

(J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man, [London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965], Ch. 10: Did God Create Man? p. 122.)

Cf. Minutes of the Sixty-Third General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church:

Given the Virgin Birth analogy that Machen sets up here, it does not seem to me to be too much of a stretch to suggest that all that Machen is arguing for here is that a supernatural creative act was involved at some point in the creation of man, especially the creation of the human soul, without necessarily denying that ordinary evolutionary processes may have been at work along the way.

(Minutes of the Sixty-Third General Assembly: Meeting at Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, June 6-13, 1996 and Yearbook of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, [Willow Grove: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1996], p. 115.)

Cf. D. G. Hart, John R. Muether:

In July of 1925, William Jennings Bryan wrote to J. Gresham Machen to see if fundamentalism’s best known scholar would testify for the prosecution at the Scopes Trial. By this time Machen had a reputation for not backing down from a fight. In fact, his biggest battles were yet to come, both at Princeton Seminary and in the missions controversy of the 1930s. But in this particular case Machen was remarkably sheepish and declined Bryan’s request. His reasons, judiciously stated, had to do with his lack of expertise in Old Testament studies and biology. But what Machen did not communicate to Bryan may have been even more significant than his official reasons for not going to Dayton, Tennessee. Even though he was deeply opposed to liberalism and showed unparalleled chutzpah in combating Presbyterian modernists, Machen believed evolution was a side issue in the controversy dividing liberals and conservatives. In fact, his book Christianity and Liberalism, arguably his most important, makes no mention of evolution or Darwin.

This is not to say, however, that Machen was oblivious to questions about evolutionary theory and its implications for the Christian doctrine of creation or interpreting the first chapters of Genesis. In addition to the invitation from Bryan, Machen received many letters containing questions about whether evolution and Christianity could be harmonized. Still, he did not write about the subject for publication until the very end of his life when in the series of radio talks that made up the book, The Christian View of Man, he somewhat clumsily argued, on the basis of parallels between the first and last Adams, that the creation of man was supernatural in ways similar to the virgin birth of Christ. He wrote, “if there was an entrance of the immediate power of God in connection with the origin of the human life of Jesus, why may there not have been also an entrance of the immediate power of God in the case of the first man who ever appeared upon the earth?” (140). Machen’s intention here was to hold on to the view that the origin of man was not simply the product of nature, but instead involved the direct intervention of God. Interestingly, he did not go directly to Genesis 1 or 2 for conclusive proof, an omission suggesting that in his mind the Genesis narrative did not resolve such questions.

Aside from this one stab at the issue of evolution, Machen invariably replied to inquirers by referring them to the teaching of his mentor, Benjamin B. Warfield, longtime professor of theology at Princeton Seminary. Even in the quotation above, Machen was following Warfield’s well-worn distinction between God’s creative and providential acts.

(D. G. Hart, John R. Muether, “Inerrancy or Design? Old Princeton and Evolution,” p. 4; In: Ordained Servant, Vol. 9, No. 1, [January 2000]: 4-6.) Online.

J. I. Packer:

I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, and maintain it in print, but I cannot see that anything Scripture says, in the first chapters of Genesis or elsewhere, bears on the biological theory of evolution one way or the other. On the theory itself, as a non-scientist, watching from a distance the disputes of experts, I suspend judgment, but I recall that B. B. Warfield was a theistic evolutionist. If on this count I am not an evangelical, then neither was he.

(J. I. Packer, The Evangelical Anglican Identity Problem, Latimer Studies: 1, [Oxford: Latimer House, 1978], p. 5.)

Cf. J. I. Packer:

At one end are scientists who believe in evolution, but not in God. Some of these are agnostic; some think, as did so many in the first half of the century, that the various sciences, put together, have between them managed to disprove all forms of belief in God; all believe that the integrity of science suffers if you try to fit its findings into a theistic, deistic, pantheistic or panenthesistic frame. (Polytheism would be mentioned in that list, too, if it was still a live option among religious people.) At the other end of the spectrum are believers in God who do not believe in evolution; these vary among themselves in the way they conceive evolution and understand the biblical witness to God’s work of creation. Between the two extremes are many, professional scientists and theologians as well as men and women in the street, who believe in both God and evolution, seeing evolution as one element in God’s way of making and ordering his world…

(J. I. Packer, “Forward;” In: Phillip E. Johnson, Denis Lamoureux, Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins, [Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1999], p. 7.) Preview.

James Montgomery Boice:

…Is the sequence of the Genesis days to be compared with the sequence of the so-called geological periods? Do the fossils substantiate this narrative? How long are the “days”—twenty-four-hour periods or indefinite ages? And, perhaps most important, does the Genesis account leave room for evolutionary development (guided by God) or does it require a divine intervention and instantaneous creation in each case? The chapter does not answer our questions. I noted a moment ago that the Genesis account is a theological rather than a scientific statement, and we need to keep that in mind here. It is true that it provides us with grounds for constructive speculation, and at some points it is even rather explicit. But it is not written primarily to answer such questions; we must remember that.

Actually, there is no firm biblical reason for rejecting some forms of evolutionary theory, so long as it is carefully qualified at key points. There is, for example, no reason to deny that one form of fish may have evolved from another form or even that one form of land animal may have evolved from a sea creature. The Hebrew term translated by our word let, which occurs throughout the creation account, would permit such a possibility.

There are, however, three significant points at which a unique action of God to create in a special sense seems to be marked off by the powerful Hebrew word bara, rendered “created.” Bara generally means to create out of nothing, which means that the activity it describes is therefore a prerogative of God. And, as I pointed out in chapter fifteen, it is used in Genesis 1 to mark the creation of matter, of personality and of God-consciousness. This means that although there may have been something like an evolutionary development taking place in the periods between the use of the word bara, this was not the case at least at those three points. Besides, the chapter teaches that the whole creation was not a random development but rather a result of the direct guidance of God.

(James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology: Revised in One Volume, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986], p. 163.)

Note: A number of theologians would disagree with Boice’s assessment of the Hebrew word בָּרָא, bārā’. See for example: John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009]. Preview.

James Petigru Boyce:

(3.) Another objection is, that, according to any scripture chronology which we have, man has been on the earth only six or eight thousand years, and yet that fossil remains of men have been found who must have existed fifty thousand years ago, or more.

(a) But satisfactory proof of this has not yet been afforded. Scientific men themselves are not agreed about it.

(b) But if true, the Scriptures are not necessarily wrong, nor uninspired. The chronology of the different forms in which the Old Testament has come down to us is known to vary. This is attributable to mistakes in copying, which can more easily occur in the representations of numbers, than of any other ideas. It may be that Adam was created more than eight thousand years ago, and that the original chronology of the Scriptures so taught. It may be that, in connection with that greater antiquity, if all were known about it, would appear explanations of the great age to which many of the patriarchs are said to have arrived. Nor is it impossible that other races of men existed before Adam, either endowed as he was, with both spiritual and animal life, or they with animal life only, and he with the specially added endowment of a spiritual nature. While it is granted that such has not probably been the fact, yet is it not impossible that it may have been.

(James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology, [Louisville: Chas. T. Dearing, 1882], p. 188.)

James McCosh:

It is now admitted that Christians may hold, in perfect consistency with religion and Genesis, that certain layers of rock were formed, not at once by a fiat of God, but mediately by water and fire as the agents of God. And are they not at liberty to hold, always if evidence be produced, that higher plants have been developed from lower, and higher brutes from lower, according to certain laws of descent, known or unknown, working in favorable circumstances? There is nothing irreligious in the idea of development, properly understood.

(James McCosh, Christianity and Positivism: A Series of Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics, [New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1874], p. 37.)

Cf. James McCosh:

Whether it has been by special creation or by evolution, there are plan and purpose visible in the number and variety of animated beings; in all God’s creatures, even the lowest, enjoying life; and in the lower creatures rising to the higher.

(James McCosh, Christianity and Positivism: A Series of Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics, [New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1874], p. 83.)

John Goldingay:

I am told there are readers of Genesis who argue the following: If evolution is true, there was no Adam and Eve. If there was no Adam and Eve, there was no fall. If there was no fall, we didn’t need Jesus to save us. But this argument has reversed things. In reality, we know we needed Jesus to save us, and we recognize the way Genesis describes our predicament as human beings. We know we have not realized our vocation to take the world to its destiny and serve the earth; we know there is something wrong with the world in its violence; we know there is something wrong with our relationships with one another, especially relationships between men and women and between parents and children; and we know there is something wrong with our relationship with God. We also know we die, so we know we need Jesus to save us. The question Genesis handles is, Was all that a series of problems built into humanity when it came into existence? The answer is no. God did not create us that way. There was a point when humanity had to choose whether it wanted to go God’s way, and it chose not to. The Adam-and-Eve story gives us a parabolic account of that. They ignored the red light and crashed the train. God brought the first human beings into existence with their vocation, and they turned away from it. That is true whether or not you believe that the theory of evolution helps us understand how God brought them into existence.

(John Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, Part One: Chapters 1-16, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010], pp. 62-63.) Preview.

John Walton:

My view is that Adam and Eve were real people in a real past; they were individual persons who existed in history. The basis for this conclusion comes from the fact that in the Old Testament Adam becomes part of a genealogy, and in the New Testament a real event featuring real people is the clearest reading to explain the entrance of sin and death. Nevertheless, I also believe that the biblical text is most interested in Adam and Eve as archetypes — those who represent humanity. In particular, I believe that the “making” accounts in Genesis 2 reflect their roles as archetypes and therefore give us no scientific information about human origins.

(John H. Walton, “A Historical Adam: Archetypal Creation View;” In: Four Views on the Historical Adam, gen. eds. Matthew Barrett, Ardel B. Caneday, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2013], pp. 89-90.)

Karl Barth:

Has no one explained to you in your seminar that one can as little compare the biblical creation story with a scientific theory like that of evolution as one can compare, shall we say, an organ and a vacuum-cleaner—that there can be as little question of harmony between them as of contradiction?

The creation story is a witness to the beginning or becoming of all reality distinct from God in the light of God’s later acts and words relating to his people Israel — naturally in the form of a saga or poem. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain the same reality in its inner nexus — naturally in the form of a scientific hypothesis.

The creation story deals only with the becoming of all things, and therefore with the revelation of God, which is inaccessible to science as such. The theory of evolution deals with that which has become, as it appears to human observation and research and as it invites human interpretation. Thus one’s attitude to the creation story and the theory of evolution can take the form of an either/or only if one shuts oneself off completely either from faith in God’s revelation or from the mind (or opportunity) for scientific understanding.

So tell that teacher concerned that she should distinguish what is to be distinguished and not shut herself off completely from either side.

(Karl Barth, “Letter 181 — To Christine Barth, Zollikofen, near Been,” Basel, 18 February, 1965; In: Karl Barth Letters: 1961-1968, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1981], p. 184.)

Cf. Karl Barth:

…I am using saga in the sense of an intuitive and poetic picture of a pre-historical reality of history which is enacted once and for all within the confines of time and space. Legend and anecdote are to be regarded as a degenerate form of saga: legend as the depiction in saga form of a concrete individual personality; and anecdote as the sudden illumination in saga form either of a personality of this kind or of a concretely historical situation.

If the concept of myth proves inadequate—as is still to be shown—it is obvious that the only concept to describe the biblical history of creation is that of saga.

(Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation: Part One, eds. G. W. Bromiley, T. F. Torrance, trans. Edwards, Bussey & Knight, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1958], p. 81.)

Cf. Karl Barth:

What we read in Gen 1 and 2 are genuine histories of creation. If there is a connexion with the Babylonian myth or its older sources, it is a critical connexion. Everything is so different that the only choice is either to see in the Jewish rendering a complete caricature of the Babylonian, or in the Babylonian a complete caricature of the Jewish, according to the standpoint adopted.

(Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation: Part One, eds. G. W. Bromiley, T. F. Torrance, trans. Edwards, Bussey & Knight, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1958], p. 89.)

Cf. Karl Barth:

The Bible gives to this history and to all men in this sense the general title of Adam. Adam is mentioned relatively seldom both in the Old Testament and the New. There are only two passages which treat of him explicitly: Gen 2-3 and Rom 5:12-21 (to which we might add 1 Cor 15:22,45). The meaning of Adam is simply man, and as the bearer of this name which denotes the being and essence of all other men, Adam appears in the Genesis story as the man who owes his existence directly to the creative will and Word and act of God without any human intervention, the man who is to that extent the first man.

…it is the name of Adam the transgressor which God gives to world-history as a whole. The name of Adam sums up this history as the history of the mankind which God has given up, given up to its pride on account of its pride. …It is continually like it. With innumerable variations it constantly repeats it. It constantly re-enacts the little scene in the garden of Eden. There never was a golden age. There is no point in looking back to one. The first man was immediately the first sinner.

(Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: Volume IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Part One, eds. G. W. Bromiley, T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961], pp. 507-508, 508, 508.)

Michael F. Bird:

In light of these factors, I wish to make the following assertions about Adam and Eve, Scripture, history, and theology.

First, ancient authors, from among the Israelites and the early church, were constrained by a primitive and pre-Copernican worldview whereby they thought that they existed within a three-tiered universe of heaven, earth, and underworld (e.g., Phil 2:10; Rev 5:3, 13). One can argue that this is not part of the teaching of Scripture and therefore regard the biblical writers as speaking phenomenologically—that is, talking about things as it appeared to them. I would further identify this aspect of Scripture as part of God’s accommodation to the Weltbild (image of the physical word) of ancient peoples rather than comprising part of the didactic Weltanschauung (worldview) of Christian theology. We should apply the same distinction when it comes to biblical accounts of human origins. Alongside the church fathers, we should see in Genesis 1-3 God’s literary vehicle to reveal his pleasure and purpose about creation, human origins, the dynamics of sin and death, all recapitulated and resolved in the person of Jesus Christ.

Second, Genesis 1-11 contains a mixture of history and parable and oscillates between the literal and the figurative when it comes to Adam and Eve. I would aver, following Scot McKnight and Dennis Venema, that the memory of Adam and Eve as historical ancestors of Israel (Gen 5:1-5; 1 Chr 1:1; Luke 3:38) was given a symbolic meaning by the depiction of them as the first priest-kings of God’s creation who prefigure Israel’s election, rebellion, and hope for renewal (Gen 1-3), Viewed this way, Genesis is not a scientific account of human origins; rather, it is a creation story to be understood by all peoples, be they ancient or modern, that God is the Father of the entire human race, that he made the world and made it good, and that humanity is the summit of his creation. Genesis 1 is primarily about establishing a theistic worldview where God is the divine builder who brings life amid chaos, over and against competing ancient Near Eastern accounts of cosmic origins, by using literary forms comprehensible to the people of its time. To this end, the opening chapters of Genesis speak through a particular literary genre and in a particular cultural context that saw humanity as formed by God’s creative act in opposition to competing human origin stories. Adam is no more the first human being than Jesus has to be the last human being. This literary rather than literal approach to Genesis 1-11 certainly opens up the possibility of a symbolic reading of Adam and Eve.

Third, evolution is a divinely ordained process that has created and sustained organic life over millions of years. As C. John Collins says, “Each of us is, ultimately, ‘formed of dust,’ even if the dust has gone through a few intermediate (genetic) steps.” God made creation good in the sense that the Creator and creation were in harmony, the conditions to create sentient life were present, and creation was finite and free. Yet creation was not perfect since creation was incomplete, and it still needed to be protected and subdued (Gen 1:28; 2:15). Thus, perfection is exclusively a predicate of the eschaton. So we should consider the possibility that God used evolution to bring about biodiversity on earth and that God created genetic sequences to bring about sentient life through the inherent potential of DNA.

Fourth, it is possible to relate the genetic story of human origins with the biblical story of God’s creation of humanity. The story of human origins as told by geneticists is that Homo sapiens emerged approximately 300,000 years ago in Africa. They began specific culture-making activities such as use of symbols, creating art work, making sophisticated tools, and having religious practices about 100,000 years ago, and the first cities emerged 12,000 years ago. This relates to the story of Genesis 1-11 in a scenario where Adam and Eve were the first kind of Homo divinus, perhaps a couple of Neolithic farmers, to whom God revealed himself. God then infused each of them with a soul, endowed each of them with the image of God, commissioned them to look after a particular parcel of land, and regarded them as the pinnacle of his creation. At some point, they disobeyed God; their relationship with God and with other humans changed; they experienced not just biological death but spiritual death, a process of physical and moral corruption; and their progeny eventually created the first cities of human civilization, On such a hypothesis, Adam and Eve would be real persons in a real place and time but not the first human beings in a genetic or ancestral sense, Genesis 1-11 is a parabolic retelling of that kind of story in the literary forms of ancient cultures.

(Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: Second Edition: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020], pp. 737-739.) Preview.

N. T. Wright:

…perhaps what Genesis is telling us is that God chose one pair from the rest of early hominids for a special, strange, demanding vocation. This pair (call them Adam and Eve if you like) were to be the representatives of the whole human race, the ones in whom God’s purposes to make the whole world a place of delight and joy and order, eventually colonizing the whole creation, were to be taken forward. God the Creator put into their hands the fragile task of being his image-bearers. If they failed, they would bring the whole purpose for the wider creation, including all those other nonchosen hominids, down with them.

(N. T. Wright, “Excursus on Paul’s Use of Adam;” In: John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015], pp. 177-178. Cf. N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues, [New York: HarperOne, 2014], pp. 37-38.)

P. T. Forsyth:

Everything turns on the kind of teleology and the range of its lines. There is nothing in evolution fatal to the great moral and spiritual teleology of Christianity, whatever may happen to the antiquated, and what I ask pardon for describing as even the paleyological, forms of design. …In Jesus Christ we have the final cause of history, and the incarnation of that kingdom of God which is the only teleology large enough for the whole world.

(P. T. Forsyth, “Some Christian Aspects of Evolution;” In: The London Quarterly Review: Published in July and October, 1905: Vol. CIV.—Fourth Series, Vol. II, ed. W. T. Davison, [London: Charles H. Kelly, 1905], October, 1905, pp. 217, 219.)

Paul Janet:

That the doctrine of evolution is gaining ground over the doctrine of special creations we will not deny, but the much more general doctrine of a finality [finalité, i.e. purpose, final cause] in things is not at all impugned thereby.

For the rest, the learned and acute defender of evolution under its most recent form, Mr. H. Spencer, seems himself to recognise the truth of this, when he tells us: ‘The genesis of an atom is no easier to conceive than that of a planet. Indeed, far from rendering the universe less mysterious than before, it makes a much greater mystery of it. Creation by fabrication is much lower than creation by evolution. A man can bring a machine together; he cannot make a machine that develops itself. That our harmonious universe should formerly have existed potentially in the state of diffused matter, without form, and that it should gradually have attained its present organization, is much more wonderful than its formation according to the artificial method supposed by the vulgar would be. Those who consider it legitimate to argue from phenomena to noumena, have good right to maintain that the nebular hypothesis implies a primary cause as superior to the mechanical God of Paley as that is to the fetish of the savage.’

(Paul Janet, Final Causes: Second Edition, trans. William Affleck, [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883], p. 223. Cf. Paul Janet, Les Causes Finales, [Paris: Librairie Germer Baillière, 1876], Livre I, Chap. VII, pp. 360-361.)

Phillip E. Johnson:

I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead. I am not a defender of creation-science… My purpose is to examine the scientific evidence on its own terms, being careful to distinguish the evidence itself from any religious or philosophical bias that might distort our interpretation of that evidence. I assume that the creation-scientists are biased by their precommitment to Biblical fundamentalism, and I will have very little to say about their position. The question I want to investigate is whether Darwinism is based upon a fair assessment of the scientific evidence, or whether it is another kind of fundamentalism.

(Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, [Washington: Regnery Gateway, 1991], p. 14.)

Stanley J. Grenz:

In discussing evolution we must keep in mind that the purpose of the biblical accounts and that of scientific theories may not always be identical. Although the following often-repeated distinction is an overstatement, it does help us see that the two disciplines are fundamentally different in intention: The scientist poses the question, “how?” and answers it in terms of cause and effect. The theologian, in contrast, asks, “for what purpose?” and responds by invoking conceptions concerning God’s purposes, goals, and plans.

Leon Morris employs an everyday analogy to illustrate that the purposeful, personal answer sought by theology to questions concerning the universe is no less important than the scientific:

In answering the question, why is the kettle boiling, one can speak of the striking of a match, the kindling of the gas flame, the increase of the temperature of the water and so on. The chain of cause and effect can be complete. But it is also possible to answer the question by saying, “because I want to make a cup of coffee” The second answer is just as true as the first. It would be foolish to deny the truth of the second on the grounds that the first can be demonstrated scientifically. The scientific explanation while true is not the only one. And it may be argued that it is not the most significant one. The personal factor is important.[Fn. 32: Leon Morris, “God’s Dice or God’s Purpose,” Christianity Today 16/22 (August 11, 1972): 42 [1078]]

Some evangelicals have employed this distinction as a basis for embracing both the theory of evolution and the biblical doctrine of creation. Richard H. Bube, for example, offers this response to the question, Are evolution and the Bible mutually exclusive?

It seems to me that at the present time the answer to this question is no. An evolutionary framework is as suitable as an instantaneous creation framework for expressing the basic truths of the Bible. Note what I am not arguing: (a) I am not arguing that instantaneous fiat creation is impossible (thereby limiting the omnipotence of God), and (b) I am not arguing that evolutionary process is an ultimately faithful description of God’s creative activity (for there are still too many unanswered questions). What I am arguing is that an evolutionary-type description need not be ruled out a priori by biblical considerations, and that therefore the Christian has the freedom to pursue wherever biblical and scientific integrity lead in the future.[Fn. 33: Richard H. Bube, “Creation: Understanding Creation and Evolution,” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 32/3 (September 1980): 177.]

We need not accept the theory of evolution in order to acknowledge that what Bube suggests is a genuine possibility.

(Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994], pp. 191-192.)

Thomas C. Oden:

Classical Christian doctrines of creation do not necessarily deny an evolution, or the possibility of a natural evolutionary development of nature and history. Matter is created ex nihilo in a primary sense, radically given by God, but, as emergently developing through secondary causes, that is, through the processes of natural causality, it can undergo its own development (Tho. Aq., ST I Q103-6, I, pp. 505-24; cf. Irenaeus, Ag. Her. IV.37 ff., ANF I, pp. 518 ff.; Origen, De Princip. 11.5.4 ff., ANF IV, pp. 342 ff.). Everything is created out of nothing, but once something is created out of nothing, then something else can be in due time created out of the prevailing and developing conditions. God continues to create something out of all kinds of somethings. One can posit a gradual evolutionary process that is not a denial of creation (cf. Tertullian, Ag. Hermogenes XXIX, The Gradual Development of Cosmical Order, ANF III, pp. 493, 494).

Creation is not given without a reliable system of causality, secondary causes in nature, and natural order (Calvin, Inst. 1.16.7). All that occurs in creation depends on the Creator, but secondarily it depends upon natural causes permitted and sustained by the Creator. This is why there is a uni-verse instead of a hydra-headed world of many multi-verses: all causality is held in mutual interdependence by the Creator (John Chrysostom, Concerning the Statues, hom. X.9-12, NPNF 1 IX, pp. 410-12).

(Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology: Volume One: The Living God, [Peabody: Prince Press, 2001], p. 265.)

Note: See further: Concurrence (Concursus) — Primary and Secondary Causes.

Timothy Keller:

Today every effort is being made to insist that belief in the process of biological evolution leads necessarily to belief in ‘perennial naturalism’ (to use Alvin Plantinga’s term), the view that everything about human nature—our ability to love, act, think, form beliefs, use language, have moral convictions, put faith in God, and do art and philosophy—can all be understood as originating in random genetic mutation or some other source of variability, and prevailing in the human race today only because of natural selection. We may feel that some behaviors are universally right and should be performed, and some things universally wrong and should not be done, whether those behaviors promote your survival or not. But perennial naturalism insists that those feelings are there not because they are universally true, but only and entirely because they helped your ancestors survive. …My conclusion is that Christians who are seeking to correlate Scripture and science must be a ‘bigger tent’ than either the anti-scientific religionists or the anti-religious scientists. Even though in this paper I argue for the importance of belief in a literal Adam and Eve, I have shown here that there are several ways to hold that and still believe in God using EBP.[n. 29. Denis Alexander (Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (Monarch Books, Oxford, UK, 2008) speaks of several ‘models’ by which we can relate the teaching of Genesis 2-3 with evolutionary biology. ‘Model A’ sees Genesis 2-3 as parabolic about every individual human being. (i.e. we all sin.) ‘Model B’ sees Genesis 2-3 as a figurative account of something that actually happened to a group of early human beings. ‘Model C’ sees Adam and Eve as real historical figures, but fully accepts the fact that human life came from EBP. ‘Models D’ is old earth creationism, and ‘Model E’ is young earth creationism. (See chapters 10 and 12.) Even though Alexander lists these five, I’m not sure this exhausts the possibilities. The proposal by Derek Kidner doesn’t really fit into any of Alexander’s categories.]

(Tim Keller, “Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople,” [February 23, 2012], pp. 5, 13, 14 https://biologos.org/articles/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople.)

Note: EBP = Evolutionary Biological Processes.

Tremper Longman III:

Indeed, when it comes to traditional interpretations of creation, I am in large agreement with the view that creation and evolution can be compatible. But I will differ from those who want to do away with any sense of historical background to Genesis 1–3, particularly those who deny a historical fall and deny that there is anything like what we call “original sin.”

(Tremper Longman III, Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019], “Introduction,” p. xviii.) Preview.

William Burt Pope:

7. May evolution be made consistent with our doctrine?

The scriptural account of the secondary creation or formation of all things combines creation and providence: there are the creative epochs, in the intervals of which providence works ceaselessly by the development of types. Natural selection, heredity, and the survival of the best types are terms which are all but used in the scriptures: the middle one is used. Under the seventh secular day of Moses we now live: there is no longer creative intervention; but the Creator still works in a regular development which preserves the original types.

(William Burt Pope, A Higher Catechism of Theology, [New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1884], pp. 111-112.)

9. Resources for Further Study. Return to Outline.

Aristotle:

…the pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.

(Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, 1153a; trans. Oxford World’s Classics: Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009], 7.12, p. 137.)

Gijsbert van den Brink, Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2020]. Preview.

David N. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1987].

Denis Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? Second Edition, Revised and Updated, [Oxford: Monarch Books, 2014].

Conor Cunningham, Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get it Wrong, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010].

Nancey C. Murphy, “Immanence or Intervention: How Does God Act in the World;” In: Nancey C. Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy set the Theological Agenda, [Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2007], pp. 62-82.

Gavin Ortlund, Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020]. Preview.

Francis S. Collins, The Language of God, [New York: Free Press, 2006].

John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015]. Preview.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Evangelical Answers

Monday, May 10, 2021

Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation)

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