The Crazy Things Theistic Evolutionists Say, Part 3

Posted by Worldview Warriors On Thursday, November 11, 2021 7 comments


by Steve Risner

For the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about a meme a theistic evolutionist I’ve interacted with online was trying to speak out against. He initially claimed that being “anti-evolutionary” was akin to apostasy. This, of course, after my initial reaction of hilarity, is a sad to me and dull statement that has no connection to reality if we are supposed to think this person is a Christian. Apostasy means someone has abandoned a well-accepted and traditionally held religious belief. Perhaps this person thinks the Apostles and early Church Fathers were evolutionists and believed in the Big Bang, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true. The overwhelmingly held and traditional view on creation and the book of Genesis was that of its historical accuracy as a narrative on what actually took place. There is literally no room at all in the Bible for deep time or the Big Bang or abiogenesis and universal common descent. None. In my last post, I considered that this believer may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing like Christ talked about in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. I believe he should reject the humanism he seems so strongly to want to push on us and come out from among the unbelievers he so desperately wants to hold hands with while he bashes well-established Christian doctrine and those who adhere to it.

This all started with a meme. I’m not sure if the meme pictured here is the correct meme, but I suspect it was very close to this. He broke one of my personal rules: never argue with a meme. But that’s okay; it makes for good content when someone does.

What’s equally tragic here is he falls prey to the old canard that if you say something he disagrees with, you’re a liar and you’re sinning. This, of course, makes no sense even to a child. He tries to suggest that someone saying what this meme says is lying and bearing false witness in the name of Christ. What an absurdity. If I say Tom Brady is the GOAT (greatest of all time) quarterback and he disagrees, he would necessarily have to call me a liar rather than just accept my take on the information as different from his own but equal in standing. Of course, no evolutionist (theistic or otherwise) would ever even consider saying that creation and the Bible have any standing on the matter of origins, or that either could have anything about origins correct from a scientific standpoint. But it’s not because of merit. It’s because that would topple universal common descent because it’s such a naïve and impossible origins tale. Giving anything equal footing would undermine it very quickly. In fact, it stands contrary to so much we know scientifically it’s amazing it’s held up so long.

I believe the reason for that is a simple one, however: they cannot allow a divine foot in the door, according to Dr. Richard Lewontin (not a creationist by any means). In fact, Dr. Lewontin said this: “It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

In other words, even if it’s crazy and makes no sense, even if it’s naïve and only something children would accept, even if it defies all logic and reason and literally stands opposed to what we know with near certainty in science, we must stick with materialism and naturalism because the only other alternative is God and the supernatural. Don’t tell me there’s no bias in science. Some, like Dr. Lewontin, are honest enough to admit it.

As I stated 2 weeks ago in the first part of this series, 2 Corinthians 6 starting with verse 14 tells us that mixing with the world does not produce righteousness or truth. It is a bad idea every time. Theistic evolutionists and most old earth creationists want to take bits and pieces of the Bible but hold their so-called “science” at a much higher level of authority. They will stand on the humanist fundamentalist interpretation of nature and smother the Truth found in Scripture with it, choking it until the story they tell about origins has no resemblance at all to that found in the Bible. They try (very unsuccessfully) to incorporate Genesis (for TE’s it’s very little and for OEC’s a little more) into their science fiction. They believe this makes them some sort of intellectually superior Christian when, in reality, it frequently makes them wishy-washy Christians who stand opposed to the very clearly stated narrative found in the Bible.

There is no doubt the Bible teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 literal, 24-hour days. There is no question it says this. The first chapter of the Bible goes into detail about it. The second chapter specifically tells about man’s creation. From there we see the corruption of man and all of creation and finally, in Genesis 6-8 we see the judgement of God on man and his sinful state as a whole (you can read about that here, here, here, here, and here as well as here, here, here, and here). After the Flood, the Bible clearly informs us about the Tower of Babel (read more here, here, and in this post series) and the Table of Nations, which explains the origins of all people groups in the world. There is no doubt what the Bible intends to tell us with these passages of Scripture. Theistic evolutionists and many old earth creationists reject all of these things. The entire Bible is built on these opening chapters, and they reject them completely.

There is no question that the Bible is uniform in its teachings on creation. Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 both tell us that God made everything—the sea, the earth, the heavens, and everything that’s in them in 6 days, and He rested on the seventh. If you just use the Bible, there is no way to come up with a different narrative. None at all. We know that the Flood, which could help account for the geography and topography of the earth as well as the many sedimentary layers we find all over the globe, was global because of the reading of Genesis 6-8. The totality and universality of the language in these chapters leaves no doubt the intended message was to convey a complete flooding of the entire world, killing every land animal on earth and all humans except those found on the Ark.

As a Biblical creationist, I hold a Biblical worldview and believe the origins narrative in Scripture is accurate and true. I accept it first and then look at the data. This, in my opinion, is what every believer should do. This is not just applicable to origins but to everything we encounter in the world around us. The Bible should always be our stating point, not something we manipulate and cram into the current trends of society. If we approach the Bible as though it must bow to the currently popular but ever-changing interpretation of fallen man about the corrupted creation he is observing, we will lose every time.

I’ve said enough this week. Next time, we’ll look at this theistic evolutionist’s response to a few points of the meme. It’ll be fun.

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7 comments:

Peter Rowbottom said...

Part one
Well written.This mixing of truth, the Bible, with error, evolution, is not to bring people closer to the truth but, on the contrary, to cause them to let go of truth and take hold of error.
Your bringing the fourth commandment in this discussion is also interesting. I would like to quote it in full so that we can see how it relates to the creation-evolution debate. This is from Exodus 20:8-11, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
We can see from this that the purpose of remembering the sabbath and resting from all our labour on that day was that is so doing we would have a special day each week to honour the fact that God is the creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is. But what has man done with the Sabbath and what is the result?
It is clear from the creation story, found in the very first chapter in the Bible, and which we as creationists all claim to believe, that God made everything in six days, not millions of years, and rested on the seventh day. Then this the same day that He calls us to remember in Exodus 20, and which purpose, as we have seen to bring to our mind, each week, His creative power. But man has not remembered the sabbath day, and especially have not purposed to keep it holy. Even if we not working on this day, we discover all sorts of worldly activities to take our minds away from the very purpose for which we were called to remember it.

Peter Rowbottom said...

Part two
In Isaiah 58:13,14, we see a description of proper Sabbath keeping, "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
Now this is not some sort of legalistic requirement which we strive to do to win our salvation but "as the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it", and as we are told by Jesus himself that we are to live by every word the proceed wth out of that mouth, our keeping of His Sabbath is just a response of our love to His command. He tells us in John 14:15," If ye love me, keep my commandments." And with such a reward as Isaiah describes for doing so why would we not willingly do just what God says?
Now as the Sabbath was made for man, as Mark 2:27 tells, and the purpose of it being made for man was to help him remember the creative power of God, then the opposite would also follow. That is, in forgetting the Sabbath and not keeping it holy, we will not only forget this lesson of the Creator's power but we will also forget, to some degree the Creator, the very Lord of the Sabbath, Himself.
The other thing that Satan has done to cause us to lose the great blessing gained by keeping the Sabbath holy, is to pull a fast one over our eyes by convincing us that somehow the blessing God placed on the Sabbath, the seventh day of creation week, has somehow been transferred to another day, the first day of the week. So when God says, very clearly, remember the Sabbath day and explains through the creation process which day this is, and has pronounced a blessing on all who do this, our blessing has been snatched away from us by an enemy who knows better than anyone how much we need this day of rest to keep in mind who our God really is, the creator of heaven and earth.
Now we look for the evidence on whether he has been successful or not. It is a sad thruth that even many "Christians" have accepted the lie of evolution and laugh at those who are so simple minded to believe the creation story just as it reads. Part of that creation story includes what happened on the seventh day as recorded in Genesis 2:1-3, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Is not God blessing and sanctifying the seventh day as much a part of creation as what happened on the first six days? And when we say we can do what we want with the seventh day, which God through the same creative power of His word blessed and sanctified, are we not putting into question the facts of what happened on the first six days?
Maybe the majority of the Christian world in doing this are themselves responsible for the growth in the acceptance of the evolution lie and the skepticism concerning whether creation is something which is really credible today.

Anonymous said...

"In fact, it stands contrary to so much we know scientifically it’s amazing it’s held up so long."

I agree and may God bless your efforts when discussing things with T.E.s. I belong to several creation/evolution discussion pages on Facebook and my experience is that not one has ever changed their position on this subject there. On a few of these sites mud slinging happens from both sides and, when this happens, the discussion shuts down. I don't go there much anymore because it is the same old arguments time after time.
I am a Y.E.C. and don't see how one can be anything other if one believes in the Holy Bible.

Ben Letto said...

Philosophical naturalism will not be practiced in heaven, why should we practice it here on earth? Who are TE's trying to please? Goodness sake, read 2 Peter 3 and repent!

Steven Risner said...

Thank you, Peter, for your detailed analysis on the rest God commanded on the 7th day in the book of Exodus. I hadn't looked at the 7th day quite like that before but I can see your point and what leads you to it. I appreciate your time in explaining your thoughts.

Steven Risner said...

Thank you, anonymous, for your encouraging words and for your words of warning (I don't think you intended them as such but it's good to consider anyway) concerning how conversations of this sort tend to devolve into arguments and shouting matches rather than anything productive. I am guilty of allowing my emotions to run too hotly in this respect sometimes and let it get away from me. I need to do better.

Lord bless you...

Steven Risner said...

Thank you, Ben, for your thoughts. I think you're correct that TE's are generally trying to live in 2 opposing worlds and need to decide if they want to please the world or please God. There is no Biblical reason to adopt universal common descent into one's origins belief. If we trust the Bible to be the very Word of God, we should use it as our litmus test for anything we encounter on such matters.

Blessings