Theistic Evolution Archives

Creating Confusion: Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creation

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Benjamin West 1731

The compromises of theistic evolution and progressive creationism has caused confusion and is undermining faith in scriptural accounts.

If you saw the Ken Ham, Bill Nye debate last year you saw proponents of the two major views of Origins: Creation (defended by Ken Ham), and Evolution (defended by Bill Nye). Those two positions – Creation and Evolution – are diametrically opposed worldview positions as you can see from the chart below.

Unfortunately many Christians – including some well known, well regarded apologists and leaders- have elected to undermine the biblical account of origins by taking one of the two compromise positions below. In their desire to reconcile science and the Biblical account of the beginnings of all created things (the universe, earth, life), they are attempting to do what cannot be done: have their cake and eat it too. To appease a scientific community that has misinterpreted the data they’ve turned to either Theistic Evolution of Progressive Creationism – both of which are in compatible with the biblical account.

Can you be A Christian and Believe in Evolution?

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

What atheists have noticed that many Happy Thinking Christians have not

Christian Evangelist and defender of the Gospel Ravi Zacharias talks about how to reach the “Happy Thinking Pagan.” He describes their thought process this way:

“I don’t believe anything but I’m very happy. What does it matter?” And of course, it was also along the time of slogans such as “If it feels good, do it” and “Don’t worry, be happy.”[1]

I mention it because it is becoming increasing clear to me that when it comes to the creation / evolution debate, there is a large number of Christians who are walking in the thought process of the happy thinking pagan – namely
“What does it matter?” and “Aren’t they compatible, so why worry about it? Be happy.” It seems that many Christians are as ignorant of the harm to the faith caused by evolutionary thought as happy thinking pagans are to the reality of God.

Interestingly enough, thoughtful atheists have noticed the incompatibility between evolution and the Christian faith. Evolutionary evangelist Richard Dawkins has commented:

“I think the evangelical Christians have really sort of got it right in a way, in seeing evolution as the enemy. Whereas the more, what shall we say, sophisticated theologians are quite happy to live with evolution, I think they are deluded. I think the evangelicals have got it right, in that there is a deep incompatibility between evolution
and Christianity…”[2]

In fact, so many atheists have begun proclaiming the incompatibility between Christianity and Evolution that one blogger Continue Reading

Time to End the In House Debate

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

Among Christians there should be no questions or debates about the origins of life, the earth or the universe.

At the end of the Up for Debate Episode titled “Should Christians Embrace the Big Bang? Host Julie Roys wrapped it up with the following two questions:

– How important is this for Christians to deal with?
– Why do you think it’s important?

Dr. Danny Faulkner, Author, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, retired and now on staff with Answers in Genesis and its Creation Museum responded:

“I believe it’s important because it’s a Foundation of scripture integrity. What does the Bible say, what does God say, what does it mean to us?

True, but Dr. Faulkner misses the elephant in the room. Dr. Hugh Ross, Astronomer and best-selling author responded:

“Well notice that the time of creation is not in any of the biblical creeds. What’s important is who creates and how he creates. And this is what’s exciting about big bang cosmology. It identifies the who as the God of the Bible, it identifies his creation intervention just like the Bible says. I don’t think we should get hung up on the when.”¹

Dr. Ross’ answer not only misses the elephant in the room, but it is also very misleading. Why do the biblical creeds not mention the time of creation? (More importantly the duration.) Because that is not one of the issues they were dealing with at the time. In the first few centuries after Christ’s resurrection, the church was besieged with Christological issues – docetism (Christ only seemed to have a body but was really just spiritual), gnosticism (a whole range of errors regarding God from which we get the phrase “children of a lesser god”; errors regarding Christ; and the nature of good and evil), monophysitism (Christ had only one nature), and so on. So they were concerned with clearly and correctly defining who Christ was – that he was “very God from very God” (from the Nicene Creed) and “one person with two natures” (From the Definition of Chalcedon). The Nicene Creed was written in 325 AD; the definition of Chalcedon was written in 451. The issue of the length of creation didn’t come up until needed for evolution, and Darwin didn’t publish “Origin of Species” until 1859. So of course the creeds don’t deal with that.

Dr. Ross also states big bang cosmology identifies the who of creation as the God of the Bible. Really? Perhaps he should tell that to Continue Reading

Reclaiming the Intellectual and Moral high ground

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

Don’t fall prey to logical traps, old arguments, or the emotional baiting of evolutionists.

“It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground.”

In my previous post I referenced an article titled “The Top 10 Signs that You Don’t Understand Evolution at All” which is really a restatement of objections that evolutionists believe they have adequately answered, while at the same time lightly(?) mocking creationists – as evolutionists are wont to do. (Whether lightly or not I’ll leave to you.) As is typical in a list like this, the more important questions (for which they have no answer) are not even mentioned much less given adequate answers to. But since I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you hanging without the answers having myself referenced the article, here are responses to show none of these issues are problems for rational thinking Christians. A word of warning before we begin: Since he couches many of these statements in broad universals (“never,” “always,” etc. – which is a dead give away that the statement is almost certainly untrue and a good candidate for the “all or nothing” logical fallacy); it follows that the position he’s trying to ridicule may be technically untrue, but the point beneath the ridicule that he’s trying to make has been thoroughly refuted as I note below. Below in bold is Tyler Francke’s list of “The top 10 signs that you don’t understand evolution at all” with my explanations following immediately; and so there is no mistake on who’s saying what, my comments are indicated by my initials.

1. You Think “it hasn’t been observed” is a good argument against it.”

DC>He makes a number of questionable statements here, I’ll just point out a couple. First he notes:

“Interestingly, evolution is observable “

DC>Evolution of the type we’re talking about – molecules to man is not observable. Like many evolutionists he is committing the logical error of equivocation – using the term evolution in more than one sense (which is commonly done to win arguments, though it’s logically fallacious). Natural selection (which is not evolution) is observable; molecules to man evolution is not.

Second, he goes on to talk about an inference to the best explanation (which I drew upon in my last article) but intelligent design theorists and creationists alike, (not to mention scientists who dissent from evolutionary theory) would say given the evidence, such as the fossil evidence below, he has not drawn an inference to the best explanation by believing it points to evolution. He states:

Making viable conclusions based on inferences from the available evidence is not at all unscientific, and it is this reasoning that has compelled us toward the theory of evolution.

DC>I would challenge him that it is not the evidence that points him to evolution, it’s his a priori beliefs (science is authoritative over scripture) that lead him to the conclusion that evolution is true because judging by evidence alone, (such as the evidence from DNA, the young solar system, etc.) the correct conclusion is that there was an intelligent designer.

2. You think we’ve never found a transitional fossil.

DC>This is frankly very misleading. A more precise statement would be Continue Reading