One of the main purposes of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is to explore with evangelicals some of the difficult problems the church faces in our day. One of the most troublesome is the relationship between Christian faith and the modern scientific world view. Rightly or wrongly, this matter all but comes to focus over the question of evolution. Martin Ling may be right: “More cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution … than to anything else.”
Some Christians see no need to discuss such topics. Long ago Tertullian wrote, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What does the wisdom of this world have to do with the divine foolishness of God? We must rest secure in our private faith given to us in Holy Scripture. We have no need to become involved in the intellectual disputes of an unbelieving world.” Much could be said in support of this attitude if our Christian faith were simply a private preserve we protect for our own enjoyment. But we do not understand biblical faith to be of this sort. Faith drawn from the Bible does not demand a sacrifice of the intellect. And it is not a private opinion, but a public message to be communicated. It is, in fact, news—good news, the best of all news. As Christians, we are under orders to proclaim it far and wide to all men everywhere. And we do not invite them to set aside their brains, but the reverse. We call them not to blind faith, but to faith in a God of truth who promises us his Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.
As we send forth this issue on the theme of Christian faith and “evolution,” we do so with the earnest prayer that God will grant us—editors and readers alike—a full measure of the Holy Spirit of truth. Only thus shall we be able to think through these difficult issues clearly and faithfully, loyal to God’s truth as drawn from the world of nature; and loyal to the truth of the Bible, God’s inerrant Word.
