COULD EVOLUTION AND CREATION BE TELLING THE SAME STORY IN DIFFERENT WAYS?
- BTG No. 126b June 1999
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.*
© Copyright 2004 Institute for Creation Research. All Rights Reserved.
"And He saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19)
Often those who call themselves "theistic evolutionists," who claim that evolution was the method God used to create, offer the platitude that the order of creation given in Genesis is the same as the order of evolution as determined by the fossils. Thus, they say if we ignore the issue of time, we can believe in both evolution and Genesis. Sounds good, but this works only if you don't look too closely. While there is general agreement (such as fish preceding land mammals), there is much disagreement in the details.
For instance, in evolution, fruit trees are among the most recent things to have evolved—long after the land was populated with grasses and other plants as well as animals. But in Genesis 1, fruit trees and other seed-bearing plants were created at the beginning of Day Three. Animal life in the oceans wasn't created until Day Five, with land dwellers created on Day Six.
A favorite evolutionary claim these days is that land-dwelling dinosaurs evolved into birds. What does the Bible say? Birds on Day Five and land animals on Day Six.
Another favorite "just so" story is that land-dwelling creatures (some say perhaps it was cow-like, others say it was more wolf-like, or perhaps a hippopotamus) wandered into the ocean, and over many generations, evolved into the whales. In other words, that land animals preceded whales. But again, in Genesis, whales preceded land animals. Many, many other examples could be given. The point is, the two stories are irreconcilably different. They cannot be made to say the same thing.
Listed below are some of the most obvious contradictions in order between the two systems. The list could be considerably extended. There is no excuse for theistic evolutionists and other old-earth advocates to claim that the evolutionary system is compatible with Scripture. Either Scripture contains allegory only, or evolution is wrong.
| Contradictions Between Evolution & the Bible |
| Evolutionary Order |
Biblical Order |
- Life in ocean before land plants
- Simple plants before fruit trees
- Land animals before flowering plants
- Small animals first land life
- Dinosaurs evolved into birds
- Land reptiles evolved into pterosaurs
- Land reptiles evolved into plesiosaurs
- Land mammals evolved into bats
- Land mammals evolved into whales
- Death of the unfit produced man
|
- Land plants before life in ocean
- Fruit trees, the first plants
- Flowering plants before land animals
- Cattle before creeping things
- Birds before land animals
- Flying animals before land animals
- Marine animals before land animals
- Flying animals before land animals
- Whales before land animals
- Man, the cause of death
|
Yep, this is really good evidence that the literalist interpretation of Scripture is wrong.
"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437