What About Christian Evolution?



	What About "Christian Evolution?" (Part 1) By Dr. Don Boys © 2001 Cornerstone Communications People have asked me why God could not have started everything and then let "nature take its course" to produce mankind through an evolutionary process. Of course, nature would not take the evolutionary course. That would not be "natural" or "normal" but abnormal. And we must keep in mind that God could do anything He wanted to do. Anything is possible with God, but just because something is possible does not make it probable. And because something is probable does not mean it happened. The discussion is not, "Could God have done it" a certain way, but "How did He do it?" Rather than simply accept Genesis one and many other Bible passages, men have conjured up all kinds of "possibilities" as to origins. The Bible says, "In the beginning, God..." After looking closely at the passage I am convinced that that is what it says and what it means. Others, have chosen to believe that there is a gap between verses one and two to give unbelieving evolutionists the time they need to prop up their silly, unscientific house of cards. Still others tell us that each day in Genesis one lasted long ages. This is usually called, "the day age" theory. The day age theory is often based on a bad interpretation of II Peter 3:3-10. The key verse is verse 8: "...that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." It all depends on what the meaning of "as" is! Many people assume that "as" is an equal sign, but not always. It also means related in a specified way. If "as" literally means a day is equal to a thousand years then that is still far short of the time that evolutionists need. So, desperate people tell us that each day is a billion years not a thousand years! But that just won't work. It is contrary to common sense (as well as other Scripture). Simple people should be able to understand the Bible without going through all kinds of mental gymnastics. Furthermore, if God wanted us to understand that the days were long periods of time He would have used "olam" instead of "yom" that means a 24-hour day. "Yom" is used more than 2,000 times in the Old Testament and 95% of the time the word clearly means 24-hour days. About 5% of the time "yom" means a period of time such as the "day of the Lord" but that could also be a 24-hour day! This word appears over 200 times in the Old Testament with numbers such as first day or second day and it always means a 24-hour day! Further proof that "day" used in Genesis one is a normal day is seen because of the words, "evening and morning." This always refers to normal days. Proponents of the day age theory tell us that they are correct because the sun was not created until day four so there could not have been an evening and morning. However, there was light from the beginning, and there is no sun in heaven. Their reasoning is fallacious. Also consider that if each day lasted a billion years, then half that time would be dark. That means that all life on earth would have perished. Furthermore, trees and plants were created on day 3, a billion years before the sun (according to them) but that is impossible since plants must have sunlight. Since plants were created on day 3 and insects on day 6, that means the plants and flowers would have not been pollinated for three billion years. Hardly! In Ex. 20:11 we are told that God created everything in six days then rested on day 7 as an example of one week. Did God "rest" a day or a billion years? If the day-agers are right, then God is still resting, but John 5:17 tells us that God is still working! He created everything is six days then rested one day to give us an example of one week and also to remind us to rest one day per week. After that day of rest, God got back to work and is "working" today. In desperation men tell us that the word "day" is only a symbol. But symbols can never be first used. There must be a foundation laid for use of the word. For example, Christ is the "Door" but if no one on the earth knew what a door was then the symbol would be useless. The meaning of "day" must be established before it can be used as a symbol. None of the Old Testament rabbis taught that the Genesis "day" was a long period of time, and they commented on practically every verse in the Old Testament. The early church fathers did not believe in long periods for the six days of Genesis with the exceptions of Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Both those men, while brilliant, were allegorizers, and tried to spiritualize every truth. Dr. John Howitt wrote to nine leading universities asking appropriate professors if they considered the Hebrew word yom (day), as used in Genesis 1, accompanied by a numeral to be properly translated as a normal day, an age or either day or an age. Oxford and Cambridge did not respond, but professors at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Toronto, London, McGill, and Manitoba all agreed that it was a normal day! University of Oxford Hebrew Professor James Barr admitted that to his knowledge there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to Bible readers the idea that creation took place "in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience." Now when non-fundamentalists take that position in support of literal interpretation, it must be true. © 2001 Cornerstone Communications