Comment:

I would like to say that I envy you. I can’t seem to reconcile my faith with evolution. I’m sure that the things I was told at church about evolution has a big part to play in my crisis but I think it’s also the way that science has presented it. Ever since Darwin discovered the theory, it’s been touted as random mutations or variations. It has no goal or purpose in mind and that humanity was not it’s end goal. I can’t see God using this method to create us. I also can’t see a good God allowing predation into the account and calling it good. He would have to be a psychopath to call it that. Also, ever since we discovered Mendelian genetics, we can’t say that God knitted us together in our mother’s womb because we know different.

Response:

You are right that Neo Darwinism has been touted as the “truth” and that it has been presented as if it were proved that the process is fully random, with no goal in mind. However, you do not have to accept this view. I certainly do not accept for a moment that the process if fully random. How could one prove that it is fully random? Can science prove that it is totally random? Certainly not. The randomness of events 500 million years ago cannot be demonstrated by experiment. This is just a presupposition—plain and simple. Do not be intimidated by the aggressive atheists who try to imply—falsely—that it has been proven that evolution is totally random, with no purpose or direction in it. I believe that no set of random events would have produced a thinking, conscious, intelligent creature, able to understand the universe we live in, capable of rational thought, sensitive to moral absolutes and so forth. This is not science. This is atheist philosophy shoved onto the science.

Now, the science does imply that evolution has happened. The science does imply that common descent is a good model and is supported by the evidence. You were probably raised with the idea that evolution is demonic. Well….. perhaps atheistic ideas of evolution are demonic, but evolution itself is a means of creation wonderfully designed by God and we Christians ought to claim this theory back for God. You can accept that evolution has happened without swallowing hook, line and sinker, the atheistic assumption about the path of evolution being fully random.

You believe that the death of animals is “evil.” Why? There is nothing bad or evil about animals eating other animals. What is immoral about this? Death is not evil. It is not even bad, although it makes us humans sad. It is not evil when a whale eats krill. It is not evil when a lion takes down an antelope. This is “natural” and part of God’s creation. Why is it psychopathic to allow for a natural system in which certain animals eat other animals? I do not understand what rational argument leads to this conclusion. Can you explain why you think this is psychopathic? Is it psychopathic for me to eat hamburgers or for God to allow me to eat hamburgers? I do not follow this reasoning.

As for us being “knitted together in our mother’s womb,” this is poetry and should be taken as poetry. It is not a doctrinal statement. David also said to God, “against you only have I sinned.” This is not true. I am sure David sinned against many people, including Uriah, but David is expressing his emotions. We cannot prove any doctrine from an emotional poem such as one of the Psalms. Mendelian genetics have absolutely nothing to do with whether David was right to express the emotional feeling that he was “knit together in his mother’s womb.” This is not a scientific statement and should not be interpreted as a scientific statement. David is saying that God formed him and that God holds his life in His hand. He is not talking about the origin of species.

John Oakes