When people think about “science vs the Bible,” they often think about evolution vs creation. Did God create everything in six days, or did life evolve over millions of years?
Some people who used to be Christians have left their faith because of evolution. They left their “church bubble” and learned about the strong evidence for evolution. Then, they thought everything they learned in church was wrong.
What went wrong? Did their church fail them? Did their Christian school teachers fail them? Is the evidence for evolution really that strong?
We’ll explore these questions today.
Before we go further, let’s think about an analogy that will help make things clearer.
People often call evolution the “tree of life.” This means that all life is connected. If we trace back the branches of the tree, we would find one common ancestor at the bottom that connects all life.
That is one way to look at the evidence. But there is another way.
Imagine that life is like an orchard instead. It is a collection of smaller, separate trees. Within each tree, there are relationships between organisms, but there is a clear break between one tree and another.
This is what creationists call the “orchard of life.” Today, we will look at both ideas, see if either or both are valid, and think about how biology shows God’s glory and plan.
What is the Evidence?
Both evolutionists and creationists look at the same physical evidence. We don’t have one set of facts while evolutionists have another.
Sometimes, each side may ignore evidence that doesn’t fit their conclusions. Both groups have done this in the past. But we’re all looking at God’s world and coming to different ideas about how it works.
Here are some “big picture” ideas that both evolutionists and creationists see and try to explain:
- Life’s connectedness: This means that all living things are linked in some way. For example, humans, animals, and plants share some common characteristics.
- Shared features between organisms: Many living things have similar body parts. For instance, birds and bats both have wings, but they use them differently.
- Genetic similarity: The DNA of different living things can be very similar. Humans and chimpanzees, for example, have DNA that is almost the same.
- Order found in the fossil record: Fossils, which are the remains of ancient living things, are found in layers of rock. These layers show a timeline of life on Earth, with simpler life forms in older layers and more complex ones in newer layers.
- Repeating patterns in life’s development: Throughout history, some features appear again and again in different species. For example, many animals have eyes, even though they evolved in different ways.
As we move through this lesson, we’ll talk about how evolutionists and creationists understand this evidence differently. When we’re done, hopefully you’ll come away with a simple yet very important idea: There’s more than one way to frame the evidence.
What About Evolution? (Tree of Life)
Charles Darwin was not the first to think that all life might be related. Ancient Greek thinkers had similar ideas. But Darwin’s work made scientists take the idea more seriously.
Darwin was a naturalist, which means he studied nature. He traveled on a ship called the HMS Beagle and visited the Galapagos Islands. There, he saw different kinds of finches. These birds had beaks that were different in size and shape.
He thought the finches were related and wondered if all life could be connected in the same way. This idea became easier to imagine because of long time periods and uniformitarianism, ideas introduced by James Hutton and Charles Lyell we talked about a few lessons ago.
As he studied these creatures, Darwin came to believe that natural selection was responsible for creating this evolutionary change. This was a good start, but it was missing a key ingredient: genetics.
In the early 20th century, after the field of genetics was developed, a new way of understanding Darwin’s theory formed. Scientists realized that evolution happens through random genetic mutations acting on populations of organisms through natural selection. This has become known as the Modern Synthesis or the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis.
Here’s a brief explanation:
Natural Selection
You may remember the simple definition of natural selection from grade school: “The survival of the fittest.” As organisms adapt to their environment, some are better at surviving than others.
Over long periods, these changes cause weaker (less fit) organisms to die off while stronger (more fit) organisms survive. Nature “selects” these organisms, allowing them to reproduce and pass on their traits.
Technically, this goes deeper. Selection happens not only at the level of populations or organisms but at the level of traits. Organisms with certain traits survive better in specific circumstances. These traits are subject to “selection pressures” (like environment and ecosystems) where they are tested.
Darwin knew this was happening but did not understand why. Natural selection is a confusing term because it sounds prescriptive but actually it’s descriptive. It simply describes what is happening.
Something else was needed, which is where the idea of random mutation comes in.
Random Mutation
Gregor Mendel was a scientist who studied pea plants in the 1800s. He noticed how traits like flower color and seed shape were passed from parents to offspring. By breeding the plants and tracking these traits, he discovered that traits are controlled by “factors,” now called genes. Each plant has two genes for each trait, one from each parent, and these genes can be dominant or recessive.
Mendel’s work led to the field of genetics, helping us understand how traits are inherited. Later, scientists discovered that genes are made of DNA, and changes in DNA, called mutations, can introduce new traits.
These random mutations, combined with natural selection, explain how evolution happens. Traits that help organisms survive get passed on, while those that don’t may disappear over time.
Does the Modern Synthesis Work?
It sounds simple enough, right? If you don’t look too closely, it seems like a believable explanation. In fact, it’s so believable that I think it’s absolutely true.
I’ll go one step further: Most creation scientists think this is true too. No one denies natural selection through random mutations. We can see this process happening. So what’s the issue? Where’s the problem?
Assumptions
The first problem is, no surprise, the assumptions used to stretch this thinking into the distant past, what scholars call “deep time.” Uniformitarianism comes up again.
If you take the observations of evolutionary science and use the uniformitarian assumption that this process has been happening since the start of life on Earth, you end up with Darwin’s original idea: that all organisms are related and share a single common ancestor.
However, if you drop that assumption, a new set of conclusions appears. For example, if you assume a creator was involved, you would want to know how that creator created. What the creator tells you would greatly change how you understood the evidence.
We’ll talk more about adopting that assumption below.
Limitations
In the past 20 years or so, new information has made scientists wonder if these evolutionary mechanisms are strong enough to do what evolutionists want them to.
Some scientists have even suggested completely different explanations, but none are very convincing. The most popular idea right now is called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. This builds on the original Modern Synthesis but adds new ideas like epigenetics (gene expression passed down without changing DNA) and “developmental bias” (certain developmental pathways are more likely to produce specific variations, guiding the direction of evolution).
Why the change? A key observation about the limits of the mutation-selection mechanism: Devolution.
Most changes in an organism result in mutations that break things, not build them. Researchers have found that organisms can only evolve so much before harmful changes catch up to them, and they can’t evolve past a certain point.
Creationists have taught this for years and predicted that changes can’t move beyond the level of “Family” and sometimes “Order” in the Linnaean classification system. Research published by Dr. Mike Behe (an evolutionist) in 2018 confirmed this.
From the wonderful research on Darwin’s finches and other work I’ll discuss in this book, it now seems reasonable to draw the line between the levels of family and genus. That is, chance plus selection can indeed give rise to both new species and new genera, just as Darwin envisioned, just as they did in the Galápagos. That’s crucially important in enabling groups of organisms to diversify and fill disparate environmental niches. But, as a first approximation, Darwinian processes (or for that matter any other non-intelligently planned process) cannot produce descendants that differ from their ancestor at the level of family or higher……What variation can exist within a family? For the dog family to the difference between a domestic dog and a wolf and a fox. For the cat family, it’s the difference between a lion and a leopard and a lynx. For the seal family, it’s the difference between a ringed seal and a hooded seal and a bearded seal. That degree of variation can likely be achieved by random mutation and natural selection. What is the difference between members of two separate families? For birds, it’s the difference between a swift and a hummingbird, woodpecker and a toucan, or a thrush and a starling. For mammals it’s the difference between a cat and a dog, or a rat and a muskrat, or a porpoise and a narwhal. If my argument is correct, those differences required explicit design.
Explanations
The final big problem is that many ideas scientists attribute to evolution can and should be explained by more obvious individual phenomena. A great example is Darwin’s original finches! Darwin observed these finches and thought they showed evolutionary change. While we might wish history had happened differently, he was actually on the right track! It’s good because we’ve learned a lot about how God’s world works based on his observations.
But what if the different beak sizes and shapes are more about seasonal or environmental adaptability than evolutionary change? That’s exactly what researchers have found.
Studies by Peter and Rosemary Grant have shown that the beak characteristics of Darwin’s finches can change quickly in response to environmental pressures like food availability. For example, during times of drought or heavy rainfall, the types of seeds available to the finches can change a lot. This leads to changes in beak size and shape within a few generations because finches with beak shapes better suited to the available food are more likely to survive and reproduce.
But Wait, There’s More
It’s easy to wonder why evolutionists remain evolutionists even with this evidence (and I’ve only mentioned a little here). In fact, the quote above confirming creationists’ predictions was by Michael Behe, whom I called an evolutionist.
To be clear: Behe is an evolutionist, but he’s a big part of the Intelligent Design movement (and he is Catholic). He believes in the timeline of molecules-to-man evolution but thinks God stepped in at different points to help organisms “over the hump” of what evolution could do on its own.
Most people don’t realize you can believe in one without the other, but you can. (After all, Darwin believed all life was related before the field that could prove it was even discovered!)
Remember, above, I mentioned this list of observations both evolutionists and creationists need to explain:
- Life’s connectedness
- Shared features between organisms
- Genetic similarity
- Order found in the fossil record
- Repeating patterns in life’s development
The evidence we discussed above is the evolutionists’ attempt to understand that. But even if the mechanisms fail, the observations remain, and because of the uniformitarian assumptions, they have no reason to question the fundamental relatedness of life and the time it took to establish those relationships.
However, there is a HUGE problem—another assumption—hidden in the list above that explains why evolutionists and creationists see the evidence so differently. Let me give you the list again, this time with a little different spin on the wording:
- Life’s disconnectedness
- Shared features between some organisms but not others
- Genetic dissimilarity
- Order found in the fossil record
- Random surprises in life’s development
Do you see the difference? It turns out the evolutionary methods for establishing a hierarchical relationship between organisms are blind to “discontinuity.” In other words, they consider only how organisms are similar, not how they are different.
Because there are differences between the organisms God created, any method that does not take those into account will not be correct.
So, how does a creationist understand life?
The Bible and Created Kinds (Orchard of Life)
While Darwins theory of evolution is common knowledge, even most Christians don’t know there is a history of creationist thought dating back to even before the time of Darwin on these subjects. I won’t give you a long boring history lesson, but you at least need to know the big changes that have taken place.
Fixity of Species
Charles Linnaeus was a creationist who lived 100 years before Darwin. He is known as the “Father of Modern Taxonomy” because we still use his system today.
At first, he believed in the “fixity of species.” This means he thought species do not change and stay the same over time. He believed what God created in the beginning is what we see now.
However, later in his life, Linnaeus’ own observations and studies of plants and animals led him to change his mind. As he classified more species and noticed variations within them, he began to consider that species might not be fixed and could adapt to their environments. This shift in his thinking occurred before Darwin published his theory of evolution.
Hybridization
As creationist thinking continued to evolve (pun intended), scientists began looking at what criteria would establish a relationship between organisms. Frank Lewis Marsh, a Seventh-day Adventist creationist biologist, proposed the theory of kinds.
Marsh believed that God created “kinds,” which was probably similar to the Linnaean classification of “Family.” A crucial part of Marsh’s idea was hybridization, the notion that if two organisms could reproduce with each other, they belonged to the same kind.
This thinking reigned until about the 1990s. While it is usually true, it doesn’t account for exceptions, organisms not currently alive, or traits that organisms either share or don’t share.
Baraminology
Marsh coined the term Baramin, which is a combination of two Hebrew words: Bara (to create) and min (kind). Thus, he called the initial created organisms created kinds or baramins.
Building on Marsh’s work, Dr. Kurt Wise developed the field of baraminology in the early 1990s. Baraminology not only looks at how organisms are similar, but also how they are different.
Baraminology includes hybridization but also creates categories to classify organisms both alive and in the fossil record. It also allows for the development of systems that can classify organisms based on traits they share or don’t share.
Biblical Guidelines and Guardrails
In evolutionary history, organisms change and adapt over millions of years. This doesn’t happen in any one organism but in groups of organisms. These groups may be at different stages of development when certain traits are gained or lost.
But in biblical history, organisms are specially created by God. Different types of organisms are created on different days of creation week. We’d expect big differences between organisms created on Day 5 and Day 6, for example. And differences between anything created on Day 3 and Day 4. Or any other combination.
According to its Kind
Most creationists think that when the Bible uses the word “kind” or the phrase “according to its kind,” it deals with crossbreeding or hybridization. The text doesn’t make that clear at all. (Notice, that would be a very scientific application.)
What it does suggest, though, is that different types of organisms are made according to their kind, which is different from other “kinds.”
This suggests that certain types of organisms share lots in common with others, and big differences with many more.
Descriptions of Things
The Bible often makes specific distinctions, categories, and classifications that place things in relationship to other things. Since humans are created in the Image of God, they are entirely different from any and all other organisms. However, they are related to other “higher functioning” animals because they share what the Bible calls nephesh (soulish) life, which is not shared by insects.
The natural man is distinct from the spiritual man. The stars are each distinct from each other (1 Cor. 15:41: There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in glory).
You have winged creatures, creatures that crawl on the earth, creatures that swim, etc. When you look closely, it appears that although the Bible isn’t telling us something directly about science, it is telling us something about our creator and how he likes things to be.
How Baraminology Works
If anything is clear from what we’ve seen so far, it’s that if you are only looking for what is similar between things, you won’t get a biblical picture of reality. I need to stress this point:
There is good evidence for evolution. If you accept the idea of deep time and uniformitarianism, pair it with the observations in the real world, and create a system where all life is related, you can see how evolutionists come up with the idea they do. The tree of life approach makes sense. This is why I think too much time attacking evolution is not helpful. The question isn’t why evolution is wrong, but why creation is true! We need a creationist model that makes sense of the evidence.
Baraminology, which I introduced earlier, is that try. It takes the biblical picture—that there are similarities and differences—and tries to classify organisms.
But that brings up an important question: Is the Bible the only source where we see differences between organisms? No, it is not!
In fact, when we look at the real world and begin studying baraminology, we find that most creatures are found within groups of related organisms rather than an even distribution.
When you use a biblical view and look at the natural world, a different picture forms. There are differences in cellular machinery, metabolism, physical traits, chemical makeup, morphology, developmental processes, and more.
If you classify organisms by these traits, and try to form groups based on what organisms both have in common and don’t have in common, you end up with something much closer to the biblical creationist view.
The Orchard or the Tree?
So then, which is it? Is the evolutionist right? Is the creationist right?
Ultimately, how you view reality will determine who you think is right. The truth is, as a creationist, I could step into the evolutionists’ reality and find all the problems. An evolutionist might want to step into the creationist reality and find all the problems.
Since we’re human, our understanding of the natural world is not perfect. Everybody has problems. That’s why the most productive (and Christlike) route, in my view, is doing our best to develop a strong picture of the creation model that could replace the evolutionary model.
As a creationist, I think the orchard is a better view of reality. Not only do I think it’s the biblical way to view it, I think it’s the way that most fits reality.
What’s dangerous is to teach kids that there is no evidence for evolution. That is false. And your kids will learn that it is false soon enough, and if you’ve not well prepared them, it will have bad outcomes. This stuff matters.
How Biology Reveals the Glory and Plan of God
One cool thing about studying the natural world from a Christian viewpoint is that you can learn more about who God is and what he likes by:
- Studying the Bible and comparing it with creation.
- Studying creation and comparing it with the Bible.
For example, we know that the Trinity is the best example of unity in diversity. God is one, but he is also three individual persons. So we might expect there to be differences in the things God makes, but also similarities that unite them.
We find this in what scientists call homoplasies. These are unexpected similarities between organisms that seem very distantly related—interruptions in the usual evolutionary pattern.
Another interesting thing is the different states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Now, it would be wrong to compare these directly to the Trinity. (The Trinity is not at all like the relationship between the three states of matter.) It’s just another example of unity in diversity.
Consider also the way that mothers and fathers care for their young. Throughout the Bible, word pictures are used to show different ways God cares for us. He is shown both in masculine and feminine ways.
Both male and female are made in the image of God and bring something different. But those differences find unity in Christ, who is our protector (showing strength and bravery) and comforter (showing gentleness and care).
God’s plan also works through biology. For example, the idea of species reproducing and even crossbreeding is part of the command to be fruitful and multiply on the earth.
As we’ll see in more detail next week, the Flood gives us a lot of information that helps us understand and study the world today and gives us clues about what the world was like before it happened.
The Flood, through 2 Peter 3, also connects to the ultimate judgment of God to come in the last days. These are all physical phenomena that tell us something about what happened and what will happen in God’s plan.
I would go even further to say that the way God creates differences (whether biological or otherwise) between things matters for eternal things. Angels, for example, can’t be saved but can live with God in heaven. Animals can’t be saved or, it seems, be with God in heaven (although they will likely be on the New Earth). Humans can do both. And one day, we will rule over angels according to the Apostle Paul.
That means, even though we are all creations of God, he has different plans for animals, humans, and angelic beings.
Creation teaches us a lot about God. We’ve only scratched the surface! I’m excited to see what more we’ll discover as our research methods and numbers improve.
