Does evolution refute creation?

Some, reading what I wrote about the Creator, may be of the opinion that the theory of evolution has negated the idea of creation, so I need to clarify a few things. 

First, evolution envisages the development of species: creation concerns the absolute beginning of everything that exists (apart from the eternal God himself). No-one can seriously claim that evolution created the universe. Only the almighty Creator could do that.

Secondly, evolution does not require atheism: there are theistic evolutionists who hold that God intervened in the evolutionary process to constitute human beings as we know them today –that is, conscious personal beings made in God’s image, capable of relationship with God.

Thirdly, evolution has not actually been proved – indeed, it is incapable of proof since vast ages of time would be required for demonstration by experimentation. Nancy Pearcey, who knows far more about this than I do, summing up a science article in Newsweek, wrote: “The fossil record does not, nor ever will, support the Darwinian scenario of a smooth continuous progress of life-forms, nicely graded from simple to complex”. 

Fourthly, Phillip E. Johnson’s research on the bases of evolutionary theory has shone light on the naturalistic or atheistic assumptions underlying the evolutionary theses. “The doctrine that some known process of evolution turned a protozoan into a human is a philosophical assumption,” he affirms, “not something that can be confirmed by experiment or historical studies of the fossil record”. So evolution has not been demonstrated following the exacting demands for proof and truth that we expect from science. Evolution does not refute creation. 

Some atheists may hold tenaciously to evolution because they do not want to envisage a Creator God; only God knows their deep reasons, but it is a shame to refuse our loving Creator as if his existence would be harmful. The Christian option has multiple indications of its validity and explanatory power to valorise our personal reality, whereas mindless evolution would logically reduce us to mindless animals or soulless machines. Such a philosophy is unliveable. 

Jesus’ teaching that “from the beginning God made them male and female” (Mark 10.6), does infinitely more than evolutionary theory to enable us properly to understand ourselves. It not only valorises our personal faculties, but it provides a framework for real meaning and purpose. Indeed, the understanding that we were created by God frees us from the existential despair that is communicated by the hopeless and ultimately groundless vision that we came about by blind, mindless chance.

Authentic hope for answers can only come from the Creator informing us himself; and his wisdom and love have found the way to do that – by divine revelation, centred on Jesus.

Clive Every-Clayton