Creation vs. Evolution: Two Sides of the Same Coin or Incompatible

 Andrew Stutts

Can the theories of Evolution (Darwinism) be reconciled with the theology of Creation (Creationism)?  Is Darwinism good science?  Can religion be scientific?  It is doubtful that the struggle between evolution and creation will disappear anytime soon.  This paper shall advance the merits of both schools of thought and shall identify issues favoring both.  Finally, this paper will examine the various aspects discussed concerning Darwinism and Creationism and draw a conclusion as to their compatibility.

To begin to assess the congruence of evolution and creation a clarification of the two terms is necessary. Creationism as defined by the by the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary states that creationism is: “A doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis” ("Creationism”).  The definition for Darwinism is, “A theory of the original perpetuation of new species of animals and plants that offspring of a given organism vary, that natural selection favors the survival of some of these variations over others, that new species have arisen and may continue to rise by these processes, and that widely divergent groups of plants and animals have arisen from the same ancestors; biological evolution” (“Darwinism”).  The term Darwinism is interchangeable used with the word evolution.  The word evolution used in this sense is commonly used to explain changes in organisms both great and small.  Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box” provides the following description of evolution; “Evolution is a flexible word.  It can be used by one person to mean something as simple as change over time, or by another person to mean the descent of all life forms from a common ancestor, leaving the mechanism of change unspecified. In its full-throated, biological sense, however, evolution means a process whereby life arose from non-living matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.  That is the sense that Darwin gave to the word and the meaning that it holds in the scientific community” (Behe X-XI).    Similar to the author previously quoted, this is the meaning I shall defer to when using the term evolution.  Furthermore, it is important to note that the term evolution is frequently broken down further into the terms microevolution and macroevolution.  “Generally, microevolution describes changes that can be made in one or a few small jumps, whereas macroevolution describes changes that appear to require large jumps” (Behe 14).

The primary idea underlying Darwin’s evolutionary mechanism is that gradual changes continually occur over time in plants and animals.  These changes are caused by mutations and other factors.  Furthermore, given enough time and if the changes are large enough, a new species will eventually evolve.   Lastly, while the Bible attest to the purposeful creation of God; science sees blind chance as the only driving force behind evolutionary change.

Fundamentalist theology is the primary logic and rationalization behind Creationism.   Scientist examines how and why the world came into being but Creationist are most concerned with who is behind creation and they believe scripture inherently explain everything concerning the origins of life.  Furthermore, Creationist believe that “according to the ‘Bible’, we are not here be accident” (Hudson 8-15).   This literal belief in the “Genesis” account of creation is important to Creationist because it is the foundation to ever idea and belief they hold dear.  The following passage from the American Bible Society’s magazine “Messages from God” capture this sentiment perfectly; “Some scholars think Genesis 1 depicts the world as God’s cosmic temple, where he comes to rest on the seventh day and dwell with human beings.  This idea sets the tone for the rest of the biblical story.  After things go wrong in Genesis 3, God sets out to restore the world so he can dwell with us again (Revelation 21:3)” (Hudson 8-15).

Creationism affirms that God created all that exist out of nothing.  Theistic evolutionists share a similar belief that a Deity or Supernatural being originally created everything but differ from creationist in that creation was left to evolve on its own.  Darwinism does not allow in its theory for Divinity to be the catalyst in the origin of life.  Darwinism states that various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types.  Furthermore, Darwin postulated that life descended from one type and evolved into the myriad of life forms we have today.  Note what Darwin says concerning this subject in “The Origin of Species”; “Therefor I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same class…Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed” (Appleman 171).

Much of the dispute between Creationism and Evolutionism stems from a literal interpretation of the “Bible”, specifically “Genesis” and their deviating reckoning of the earth’s age.  In” Genesis’, God is unmistakably understood as making the heavens and the earth and all living things inhabiting the earth in a six-day time frame.  Furthermore, God was satisfied with his creation and created nothing new after those first six days.   This fundamentalist interpretation of the “Bible” affirms that history began on the sixth day and that the earth and all its inhabitants are relatively young and unchanging. In fact in the seventeenth century, ecclesiastics calculated that God created the world in 4004 B.C.E –“a year still cited in some annotated “King James Bibles” (Appleman 7).  Divergently scientific consensus backed by Darwin’s theories of evolution estimates the age of the earth at approximately 4.5 billion years.  Furthermore, evolution theory postulates that simple, unicellular life first emerged approximately 2.5 billion years ago.  Also, corresponding to Darwinian Theory, eventually all living things evolved from these first unicellular life forms.

So, why are mainstream Creationists concerned with how old the earth is?  It is an important issue because it relates to the inerrancy of the “Bible” or in basic terms that it actually means what it says.  The age of the earth, from a Creationist’s standpoint, goes to the very heart of the trustworthiness of scripture.  Therefore, a compromise concerning the age of the earth undermines every aspect of the Bible thus creating crises of faith for many as well as huge problems with evangelism. 

Today most people, including those with deist leanings and even scientist with alternate theories of creation, do not doubt that the universe and possibly the earth are billions of years old.  Furthermore, most find no objection to the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) and have no particular reason to doubt these assertions.  The one thing both opponents and proponents of Darwin’s theory will agree on is that he is fundamentally correct concerning his postulations regarding microevolution.  However, the point of contention is his theory in regards to macroevolution.  Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box” has the following to say concerning Darwin in this regard; “On a small scale, Darwin’s theory has triumphed; it is now about as controversial as an athlete’s assertion that he or she could jump over a four-foot ditch.  But it is at the level of macroevolution—of a large jumps that the theory evokes skepticism” (Behe 15).  When Behe refers to large jumps he is talking Grand Canyon type leaps that can’t be ignored due to the fact that modern biochemistry brings to light that these “unbridgeable chasm occurs even at the tiniest level.” (Behe 15)  Darwin’s idea might explain horse hoofs but the new field of Biochemistry has pushed Darwin’s theory to the limits of its credibility concerning macroevolution or large scale changes in species. This is not to say that the whole theory of evolution should be scraped but neither should it be considered blasphemous to challenge, doubt, or inquiry any of its tenants.

Many times the Bible and Christianity in general get wrongly blamed for humanity’s past erroneous thoughts on the world and universe.  However, there is rarely a complete conversion to a new religion.  There remains much of the older folk customs and beliefs that never completely disappear, at least not very quickly.  This was especially true of the conversion to Christianity in Europe.  Furthermore, after decades of Roman domination Europe esteemed everything Greco-Roman as unquestionable in matters of philosophy and science.  Much of the wrong views of the world and universe did not come directly from the Bible but was mixed with older myths such as a flat world or the earth centered universe, see Greek thought.  In fact, the Bible disagreed with much of the prevailing Pagan thought.  The Christian magazine “Messages from God” make this point in the following excerpt; “The writer of Genesis 1 wasn’t afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom of his day.  For example, many in the ancient world worshiped the moon and sun as divine beings.  Yet the Bible mentions both in its creation account.  (They’re the ‘two powerful lights’ in Genesis 1:16.)  This may be Scripture’s way of challenging their divinity by indicating that they are just created objects and that there is only one true God” (Hudson 8-15).  Therefore, it should be clear that the inerrant interpretation of the “Bible” is not solely to blame for the slow acceptance of new theories and ideas by mankind.  Although it could be argued that an allegorical approach should be taken when reading things of a spiritual nature, hybridizing philosophies alien to the “Bible” is likewise equally responsible for its misapplication to matters of science.

The initial defense of Darwin’s theories in the 19^th century by the likes of Thomas Henry Huxley, better known as “Darwin’s bulldog”, was justified.  Also, the struggle in the 20^th century to allow evolution to be taught in the classroom was correspondingly warranted.   The motivation was to not allow belief to stifle intellectual inquiry.  These champions of scientific and academic liberty would feel connected to the following quote from the metaphysical philosopher Osho; “I do not believe in believing.  My approach is to know, and knowing is a totally different dimension.  It starts from doubt, it does not start from believing.  The moment you believe in something, you have stopped inquiring.  Belief is one of the most poisonous things to destroy human intelligence” (Osho vi).   However, today some would say the tables may have turned and Darwinism has now become a new belief system itself.  This begs the question of whether this staunch defensed is still needed by Evolutionist.

So, why are the Darwinist so staunchly against anything that remotely hints at a deity’s involvement in creation?  Is it because they do not want things to go back to the way they were?  It seems more probable that proponents of evolution are waging war against religion and will not be satisfied until religion is completely stamped out; forcing the masses to adopt an atheistic world view.  Harun Yahya wrote the following concerning this in “Cultural Hegemony”; “The ones who organized this war were the dominators of the world systems, as we have stressed at the beginning.  They wanted to secure a justification for the non-religious systems they had established.  And for this end, they had to find a model (a cosmology) which brought an anti-religionist explanation to the whole universe.  Darwinism and all the other versions of the theory of evolution were important because they made up a great part of this cosmology” (Appleman 553).  There definitely seems to be an atheistic agenda involved with evolution.  To be fair, the Creationist are equally fervent concerning changing popular opinion.  However, Creationist are grounded in religious belief and make no pretentions not to proselytize their religion.  Darwinism and evolution are closely aligned with Atheism.  Atheism is a belief system and this belief system is being proselytized by its proponents under the guise of science.   Therefore, both these protagonist seek to promote their belief systems, Creationism overtly and Darwinism/Atheism covertly.   

The metaphysical philosopher and author, Osho, wrote the following concerning religion in “The Book of Understanding”; “All the religions are based on belief; only science is based on doubt.  And I would like the religious inquiry also to be scientific, based on doubt, so that we need not believe we can come to know someday the truth of our being, and the truth of the whole universe.” (Osho vi)  This sentiment is fundamentally sound and beneficial to mankind’s growth and understanding.   However, Darwinism has become a religion on to itself.  Lynn Margulis, a notable Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts, agrees with that same assertion.  She is highly regarded in her field for her widely accepted theory that mitochondria, the energy source of plant and animal cells were once independent bacteria cells.  Professor Margulis declares that history will ultimately judge neo-Darwinism as “a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology” (Behe).    

 Osho in his “The Book of Understanding” illuminates both the Creationist and Darwinist fears concerning their antagonists’ ideas.  These fears are what keep the two camps continually at odds.  Osho provides the following lecture on this topic; “The Christians say God created the world, In fact the hypothesis of God is needed for the creation.  The world is there; somebody must have created it.  Whoever created it, that creator is God.  But do you see the implication?  If the world is created, then there can be no evolution: Evolution means that creation continues. Think of the Christian story: God created the world in six days, and then on the seventh day he rested; since then he has been resting.  The whole creation was completed in six days.  Now, from where can evolution possibly appear?  Creation means finished!  The full stop has arrived.  On the sixth day, the full stop, and after that there is no possibility of evolution.  How can there be reconciliation between Creation and Evolution?  Evolution implies that creation is not complete; hence the possibility of evolving.  But God cannot create an incomplete world; that will be going against God’s nature.  He is perfect, and whatever he does is perfect.  Neither he is evolving, not is the world evolving; everything is at a standstill, dead.  This is the reason why the church was against Charles Darwin, because that man was bringing in an idea that was going to kill God sooner or later” (Osho 134-135).   The connotations of this kind of thinking on both sides leave no room for both ideas to be correct.  Creation leaves no room evolution or an atheistic world view and likewise evolution leaves no room for the existence of Good.  How the two could possibly be reconciled with this apprehensive frame of mind is inconceivable.

In summary, it is difficult to imagine the theories of Darwinism and Creationism being capable of existing together in harmony.  In order to be compatible, there needs to be a number of similarities between the two theories and these similarities do not seem to exist.   Furthermore, for one to simultaneously take on both doctrines two basic premises must be addresses.  First and primarily, does one see the Bible as the inerrant word of God or are the scripture allegorically understood?    Second, does one believe in a young earth or a very ancient one?  Third, does one takes a similar leap of faith and believe all of Darwin’s theories of evolution including the macro-evolution of species?  The Bible definitely does not disprove evolution on any scale.  However, evolution does not disprove the existence of a creator or God just paradigms of such.   Aside from the agreement in microevolution there seems to be little indication that Creationism and. Darwinism have enough in common to call them compatible with each other.

Works Cited

Appleman, Philip. Darwin, texts, commentary. 3rd. New York, NY: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2001. Print.

Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box, The Biochemical Challenge To Evolution. New York: Free Press, 2006. Print.

Caiazza, John. "The Evolution Versus Religion:How Two Mystiques." Modern Age. 2005: n. page. Web. 25 Mar. 2013.

"Creationism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creationism

"Darwinism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creationism

Hudson, Christopher D. "The Wonder's of Creation." Messages from God. 24 May 2013: 8-15. Print.

Osho, . The Book of Understandig. 1st ed. New York: Harmony Books, 2006. 1-266. Print.

Stinson, Bart J. "Politically Correct Science:Why Johnny Can't Read Scientific Creationism." Christian Librarian. 2006: n. page. Web. 25 Mar. 2013.