Update at the bottom.
Wayne Grudem writes the Foreword for what sounds like a fascinating book on an important topic. World magazine selected it as one of its two 2011 Books of the Year. From the Foreword:
It may at first seem easy to say ‘God simply used evolution to bring about the results he desired’, as some are proposing today. That view is called ‘theistic evolution’. However, the contributors to this volume, both scientists and biblical scholars, show that adopting theistic evolution leads to many positions contrary to the teaching of the Bible, such as these:
- Adam and Eve were not the first human beings, but they were just two Neolithic farmers among about ten million other human beings on earth at that time, and God just chose to reveal himself to them in a personal way.
- Adam was not specially formed by God of ‘dust from the ground’ (Gen. 2:7) but had two human parents.
- Eve was not directly made by God out of a ‘rib that the Lord God had taken from the man’ (Gen. 2:22), but she also had two human parents.
- Many human beings both then and now are not descended from Adam and Eve.
- Adam and Eve’s sin was not the first sin.
- Human physical death had occurred for thousands of years before Adam and Eve’s sin—it was part of the way living things had always existed.
- God did not impose any alteration in the natural world when he cursed the ground because of Adam’s sin.
As for the scientific evidence, several chapters in this book show that deeper examination of the evidence actually adds more weight to the arguments for intelligent design than for Darwinian evolution.
What is at stake? A lot: the truthfulness of the three foundational chapters for the entire Bible (Genesis 1–3), belief in the unity of the human race, belief in the ontological uniqueness of human beings among all God’s creatures, belief in the special creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God, belief in the parallel between condemnation through representation by Adam and salvation through representation by Christ, belief in the goodness of God’s original creation, belief that suffering and death today are the result of sin and not part of God’s original creation, and belief that natural disasters today are the result of the fall and not part of God’s original creation. Belief in evolution erodes the foundations.
Evolution is secular culture’s grand explanation, the overriding ‘meta-narrative’ that sinners accept with joy because it allows them to explain life without reference to God, with no accountability to any Creator, no moral standards to restrain their sin, ‘no fear of God before their eyes’ (Rom. 3:18)—and now theistic evolutionists tell us that Christians can just surrender to this massive attack on the Christian faith and safely, inoffensively, tack on God, not as the omnipotent God who in his infinite wisdom directly created all living things, but as the invisible deity who makes absolutely no detectable difference in the nature of living beings as they exist today. It will not take long for unbelievers to dismiss the idea of such a God who makes no difference at all. To put it in terms of an equation, when atheists assure us that matter + evolution + 0 = all living things, and then theistic evolutionists answer, no, that matter + evolution + God = all living things, it will not take long for unbelievers to conclude that, therefore, God = 0.
I was previously aware that theistic evolution had serious difficulties, but I am now more firmly convinced than ever that it is impossible to believe consistently in both the truthfulness of the Bible and Darwinian evolution. We have to choose one or the other.
Check out the endorsements.
HT: Andy Naselli
Update: I asked Wayne Grudem for a brief comment on the age of the earth question. Here was his response, posted with his permission:
“When I wrote my Systematic Theology I was not able to reach a final decision about the age of the earth. My chapter on creation (chapter 15) gives arguments on both sides. I do not think the text of the Bible requires us to come to one conclusion or another, and so my main point in Systematic Theology was that Christians should allow both old earth and young earth views to be held and taught in our churches and seminaries. That is still my position.”