Can Christians Believe in Evolution?

As I was joyfully approaching the end of my current read when I got to thinking again. Something I noted in the midst of the 14 essays contained in the book was virtually all of the contributors never pronounced any stance on what they believed. They only stated they did not believe in evolution in its current state or under the present evidences of support. Myself being clearly defined as a young Earth creationist found that somewhat disconcerting. I find it necessary to explain some terms so we are speaking and reading the same language.

First, by reference to evolution, this pertains to macro-evolution and the guidance by survival of the fittest. I in no way attempt to argue against bacteria adapting and "evolving" as some phrase it, to antibiotics, or that the peppered moths did not change in quantity in relation to the air quality during the observations of the peppered moths in the UK. Second, what on earth is a young earth creationist? Within the camps of creationist, those that believe the Genesis account of creation, there are young Earth and old Earth. The young Earth creationists believe the Earth and the universe is somewhere between 6,000-10,000 years old, while old Earth creationists hold to the billions of years suggested by evolutionary theory. As I go along any other choice vocabulary I happen to describe I'll be sure to define.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the majority of the contributors did not explain what they believed. The editor and contributor of the book, Willaim Dembski, mentioned he was a creationist but I am unsure if he is in the young earth or old earth camp. I know I have written several other blogs about the topic as a whole and you may start to notice as I have learned from the number of books I have read so far on the topic, it is a vast topic. Something I have definitely noticed there are not many books about young earth creationism by very many people with decent credentials showing that they have a functioning brain. I would say Answers in Genesis is one of the main forces for the young earth theory.

Why this is I think is very understandable. In the scientific community there are very few (by proportion) people that have actively stated that they have disagreements with evolutionary theory. In fact, it is even mentioned in Darwin's Black Box if you are a beginning scientist whom wishes to have a career to be silent about your reservations/disagreements. To publicly state that you may have disagreements about the evolutionary theory is in the same breath to kill one's scientific career. Every intellectual I have read so far started believing the theory and after time, tenure and critical thinking they changed their beliefs. In addition to having a red letter on their white collar to much of the community discredits their further science. So unless someone plans on working for a creation science organization to pursue a career in science it is any wonder that there are so few scientists who actively pursue young earth science. A further difficulty in having a greater number of young earth scientists is the limitation of opportunities. By the nature of young earth science, it is related to the Genesis account (they would be Christians) whereas the intelligent design theory while many of the proponents are Christians the actual theory only pertains to an intelligence, be it God, aliens, or some other form of intelligence.

I asked it in the title and it was not a rhetorical question, “Can Christians believe in evolution?” The simple short answer, I do not believe so. Then again you knew I would never answer something so simply. In order to fully answer that question it begs the prior question of what one believes the Bible is? If it is the literal Word of God (take into account that the books of prophecy and poetic books like Psalms, Song of Solomon, and Proverbs use metaphors) or if it is merely a book of stories and legends. Anyone who has looked can easily find the historical proof Jesus of Nazareth existed, be it the direct ancient manuscripts which composes the Bible, the writings of the ancient Jewish historian Tacitus, Jesus’ existence has been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. What about the history of the Old Testament? Namely Genesis since that seems to be the key book in this topic.

I think we can biblically figure out if those that wrote the bible believed in the Genesis account of creation. Through a simple search on Biblegateway there are 24 results, allow me to dive into some of them:
In Matthew 13:34-36 Jesus refers to creation in such a way as a specific time. This is also confirmed in Matthew 25:33-35, Mark 10:5-7, and John 17:23-25 just to start. One of my favorite passages, Romans 1:19-21 Paul refers to Creation as the starting point people knew about God and chose to exchange God for something else. Paul mentions creation several other times in Romans, in those terms it was in reference to all the created things. In 2 Corinthians 5:16-18, we are described as new creations when we are in Christ, the logical implication is that before we were in Christ we were old creations. I think that is worth mentioning that we are described as created things, one would reasonably think that to be referred to as something that was created that the event of Creation was believed as such. Galatians 6 also mentions that we are new creations.
Creation is mentioned as an actual event multiple times in Hebrews, 1 & 2 Peter, and Revelations. Does it make sense that if the authors of scripture believed creation happened, it did? If that is true then I think it would make sense for us also to approach our origins in a similar way.

The other major point about creation being necessary to Christianity is one's belief of original sin. Did sin and death enter the world the moment the fruit from Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was eaten? Be it those that say Christianity is compatible with evolution claiming that it was guided by God or those that take Psalm 90:4 out of context to claim creation was not 7 literal days, day being 24 hours not thousands of years. If sin did not usher death into this world first, alternative theories are saying that at the point in the world when God pronounced the world and all creation to be very good death was present. It also contradicts Romans 5:12-21, Romans 6:15-17. As those passages clearly state, sin is the prerequisite of death. That doesn't mention there for those that want to believe the Day-Age Theory (a day is like a thousand years) there are certain issues of science to answer, such as how did plants survive without the sun. After all plants were created on day 3 while the sun and moon (light to govern the day and light to govern the night) were created on day 4.

So what is the gist of all this? A person can call themselves a Christian and believe whatever they want. However, to be a Christian, is to believe the Bible as the Word of God. I do not think a Christian can believe evolutionary theory as it is in its current form, ie without acknowledgement of God. Those who claim the two beliefs can be compatible negate to mention in order for their faith and idea of science to be compatible, either the Christian doctrine or the evolutionary doctrine must compromise.