Many people I talk to tell me they believe in God, and many are actually Christians. They have accepted that Jesus is the only way to God and have given Him their lives. But sometimes people haven’t given God their minds, especially when it comes to science and origins. Is it okay to believe the Bible and subscribe to evolution, too? Can’t we just say that God used evolutionary processes and make peace with all those smart scientists? Let me give you several reasons why it’s not possible to walk in the light of Christ and agree with the darkness of evolution.

Jesus believed in creation. If you are a Christian, you believe that Christ is God. This means that if He says something, you believe it’s true. So if Jesus (who was there at the beginning) knew that Moses got it wrong, would He be honest if He quoted Moses’ work as if it was true? Yet Jesus does quote the work of Moses. A lot. He even refers to the creation story as proof of His position on divorce, “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” (Mark 10:6, HCSB)

Jesus said Adam and Eve existed right at the beginning of creation, not after billions of years of molecules-to-man evolution. Jesus speaks of many other people and events from Moses’ account of history (see https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/did-jesus-say-he-created-in-six-literal-days/ for a list) without any disclaimer. But most importantly, if you believe that Jesus is God, then He is responsible for all the other places in the Bible where God claims to be the Creator. To say that Jesus was just speaking as a man while on earth is not an explanation but an excuse to disbelieve.

Don’t be a cafeteria Christian. The great thing about a cafeteria is you pay one price, and then you go through the line and get only what you want. No veggies? All dessert? No problem. Suit yourself! But Christianity is not a cafeteria. If you believe the truth of the Gospel message, you have to believe the whole Bible. Why? Because the Gospel message depends on our need for a Savior. That need is introduced in Genesis and illustrated all the way through the Old Testament. There we see God’s many gracious dealings with people who stubbornly continued to disbelieve. And there we see our need for His final answer, Jesus. Jesus didn’t just come to help us get rid of a few bad habits and give us “fire insurance.” Jesus came because we were born dead, under Adam’s curse, and we were so valuable to Him that He made an amazing rescue. The depth of Christ’s sacrifice becomes clearer over the backdrop of our continual, senseless rebellion recorded in the Bible. The Gospel makes no sense apart from the Creation. God’s revelation is a single unified whole.

Is science your god? To pick and choose what you will believe from the Bible you must set up another standard of truth in your own mind, separate from the Bible itself. Only then can you begin deciding where you think the Bible is right and where it’s not. This is very subjective and dangerous. Whatever you set up as your standard of truth becomes your god. For some people, their idol is their intellect: whatever they find too implausible or inconvenient they reject. For some, “the consensus view” of scientists becomes their touchstone. But scientists are human and fallible. They seldom all agree, regardless of what people say. If you generally accept the Bible, but then subject its truth to your own judgment or to some other standard, you have put that standard in place of God. Only one source gets the final word. What will it be?

Many people feel foolish accepting the Bible as their ultimate source of reality. They see its authors as ignorant ancients who couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of today’s world. But do you see how vain that is? If you study the Bible, you find that they faced the same problems we do, and they had the same God. The major difference is that they didn’t have industry, computers, iPhones, and smart fridges. But are we saying that because over millennia of learning our society was able to invent these technologies (though we may not even understand how they work) that we are superior? Are people with gadgets smarter than people who don’t have them? This is the height of science-fueled arrogance. And it’s not the first time God has dealt with it. Check out Genesis 11 where the people were enamored with their latest technological advancement, the Tower of Babel. Do we dare abandon God’s Word for our technology?

No conflict between the Bible and science. I’ve actually heard it argued that people who don’t agree that science explains our origins don’t deserve to enjoy the benefits of science like medicine and manufacturing. But it is one thing to appreciate science and quite another to put it in God’s place of authority in our lives. Science is not a god who can demand absolute allegiance. God can. So it would be more accurate to say that people who don’t acknowledge God as their ultimate authority don’t deserve to enjoy His benefits. Like air. Science is only a use of our God-given intellects to understand and better use our God-given universe. There is no essential conflict between science and God unless you try to make a god of Science. Then you have a legitimate religious battle: your idol against the Lord Almighty. And it won’t be a fair fight. Science wholly depends on the laws and certainties that God designed into creation. God depends on nothing at all. There is no conflict between God and His creations.

To conclude, there’s only room for one God in your life. James 4:11b tells us we will either submit to God’s Word or else find ourselves standing in judgment of it. If you call yourself a Christian and depend on His salvation, shouldn’t you also trust His account of how the universe got here? He claims to be the Creator and His Word, the Bible claims to be a reliable source of truth. If we claim to be Christians and want to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, we need to trust that His account of creation is trustworthy. We need to make His Word, not the word of fallible scientists, the foundation of our reasoning.

Blog by Glenn Fink
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