Current Religious Thought: September 25, 1964

That “there is not one shred of genuine evidence, either in science or Scripture, for the validity of evolution” is the conviction of Dr. Henry M. Morris, who is professor of hydraulic engineering and head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He sets forth the reasons that have led him to this conviction in his recent book entitled The Twilight of Evolution. Dr. Morris writes as one who is a scientist and a Christian, and he has every right to challenge both his fellow Christians and his fellow scientists to engage in a radical reconsideration of the whole question of the evolutionary theory and its validity.

In the popular imagination evolution is something that belongs to the field of the specialist in biology and is the concern of the scientific expert. But it is important to recognize that the implications of the evolutionary theory are total: they involve the whole realm of existence. Thus Sir Julian Huxley, the leading prophet of evolution in our day, has acclaimed evolution as “a universal and all-pervading process” and accordingly explains that “biological evolution is only one aspect of evolution in general.”

This stands to reason; for if it is true that all living organisms throughout the world, small and great, simple and complex, have evolved from a solitary primordial germ plasm, then evolution must be the key and explanation of everything—of the intellectual, aesthetic, and religious no less than the anatomical and physiological aspects of existence. Evolutionism becomes a complete and self-sufficient philosophy of life.

It means, further, that, apart from the principle of evolution itself, there can be no absolutes. Everything must be seen in terms of different stages of evolution. All is comparative and relative. And this applies to the religious sphere as much as to every other sphere. Relativism reigns supreme. We are allowed to speak only of comparative religion, since all religions must be granted their due place in the upward scale of evolution. To talk of an absolute religion or an absolute gospel is a contradiction of the evolutionary principle. The absolute uniqueness of the Christian Gospel asserted throughout the New Testament (cf. John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Gal. 1:6 ff.) is on these terms quite inadmissible. Christianity must take its place alongside the other religions.

This being so, it is not surprising to be told by Professor Morris that “all of the anti-Christian systems of modern times have found their quasi-scientific basis in the supposed scientific fact of evolution.” Evolutionism, after all, is through and through naturalistic. As a self-contained system it has no real use for the supernatural. As a substitute-religion it prescribes its own fundamentalist dogmas regardless of the acknowledged facts of scientific discovery. It is a known scientific fact, for example, that all life comes from previous life of the same kind; that like produces like. Yet the evolutionist does not hesitate to postulate that originally, in a far distant past beyond the reach of scientific investigation, life must have come from lifeless matter. This is the negation of true science and rationality.

But the man who will accept this dogma of the spontaneous generation of life from lifeless matter should be prepared to embrace the ultimate irrationality of the spontaneous generation of matter from—nothing! And this step has in fact been taken by modern advocates of the “steady-state” theory of the universe like Hoyle and Bondi, who have propounded the hypothesis of the continuous “creation” of matter—without, however, permitting the postulation of a Creator! This hypothesis is designed to eliminate the problem posed by the second law of thermodynamics, according to which the world is “running down” and will ultimately come to a stop (entropy). Rejecters of the supernatural, those who deny the existence and the sovereignty of the Creator, and therefore his power to intervene, and therefore, further, the openness of the world to intervention, like ta be assured that all things continue as they always have been and always will be (cf. 2 Pet. 3:4).

Moreover, in a world which is not open to intervention from without there is no place for the redeeming action of God by the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again of his Son. Nor, On the evolutionary premises, is there any need for such action, since man is regarded, not as fallen and lost, but as risen and self-perfectible to an indefinite degree. Thus the Christian Gospel is discarded as an insolent superfluity. But to deny the being and power of the Creator-God is to deny not only the basis of all existence but also the very meaning of all existence. And this is the height of foolishness—though those who do so regard themselves as superbly wise. As the Apostle Paul says, all men inescapably know the truth of the eternal power and godhead of the Creator; but in their unrighteousness they suppress this truth, and they do so inexcusably. In this way, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools and worship and serve the creature instead of the Creator (Rom. 1:18 ff.). The Gospel of the salvation of man by the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ is supplanted by the gospel of the improvement of man by the power of evolution alone through faith in his own efforts. “There are not many religions and philosophies among men,” writes Dr. Morris. “There is really only one, and that is the rebellious and blasphemous belief that autonomous man is capable of controlling his own destiny independently of the will of his Creator.”

In the consideration of this question, and of all other questions, the realities of the biblical revelation must not be left out of account. Dr. Morris lays stress on three facts in particular: first, the completeness of God’s work in the creation of the world, which lies behind “the most basic, the most universal, the best-proved law of all science,” namely, the first law of thermodynamics, according to which mass-energy is neither being created nor destroyed; second, the fall of man and the curse on creation that followed it, which lies behind the second law of thermodynamics and is “the real explanation for the relentless increase of entropy in the world”; and, third, the universal deluge of Noah’s day, which, as a vast catastrophic event, not only conflicts with the evolutionary postulation of an imperceptibly slow geological process extending over unimaginably long eons of time but also explains phenomena that are incompatible with the evolutionary interpretation of things.

The issues involved are important for scientists no less than for Christians. What is urgently needed today is a fresh approach, freed from hypothetical prejudgment and bound only to the principles of the biblical revelation and the ascertained facts of genuine science. This is definitely not a matter of mere side-issues.

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