Dante Duran
Some people wrongly think that Elohim (Hebrew word for God) can do absolutely anything. Elohim cannot do absolutely anything; rather He can do only that which does not conflict with His own nature. The concept is simple. Elohim’s nature is good, therefore, His own nature precludes Him from doing or being evil; Elohim’s nature is just, therefore, His own nature precludes Him from doing or being unjust. The obvious implication, therefore, is that Elohim cannot do a great many things. (Elohim is by no means not Almighty, for only He Himself can restrict His own actions). I believe that Elohim’s very own nature disallows him from employing the process of evolution as a creative process. This is to say that I believe there are theological reasons, several of them, (as well as many scientific reasons) as to why Elohim is not an evolutionist, so to speak, and that one of these theological reasons is that such would conflict with His own nature. 1) The Bible says that Elohim’s creation was perfect. 2) Evolution says “death and suffering are as old as life itself by all but a split second.” 3) If Elohim used evolution, and by implication death and suffering, as a creative process then His “perfect” world is one of death and suffering. 4) If Elohim’s idea of “perfection” is that things are dying and suffering for millions and millions of years then Elohim is evil and sadistic. 5) We know from the Bible, however, that Elohim is far from being evil or sadistic; rather He is infinitely Good and Loving. Therefore, God could not have used evolution.
1) In Genesis 1:31, we read, “And Elohim saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Elsewhere in the Genesis account Elohim calls various parts of His incomplete creation good, or tov, but here at the end of His creation, He calls the whole very good, or in Hebrew, tov me’od. These two words have been translated as exceedingly good. Together, these two words express the perfection of the place, and of the world. The entire universe was perfect. There was no death or suffering; animals ate plants and not each other. (Gen 1:30) This was a world where the lion and the lamb dwelt together in peace; where the wolf and the lamb ate together, and the lion ate straw like the ox, where none hurt nor destroy. The original perfect world was paradise; it was tov me’od. In almost every respect, what Heaven is to be, Eden was. Elohim’s original creation was flawless, it was perfect in every way, it was tov me’od.
2) The Bible says that Adam’s sin tainted, corrupted and destroyed this perfection. (Romans 5:12-19) Evolution, however, says that death and suffering existed long before Adam evolved (if he even existed) three million years ago; that life began almost a billion years ago and that “death is as old as life by all but a split second.” Evolution says that from the beginning, nature has been “red in tooth and claw,” dancing to the screams and the shrieks of creatures torn into thousands of pieces while yet still alive, and swaying to the moans and the groans of every miserable, diseased, deformed, dying animal. Evolution is bloody process of death and aggression.
3) The Bible says that the creation of man (Adam) was unique. It was not like the creation of plants and animals, where Elohim said, “Let the earth bring forth grass… Let the waters bring forth abundantly [fish and fowl]… Let the earth bring forth the living [land] creature(s)…” No, the Bible says that God said, “Let Us (Elohim the Father, Elohim the Son and Elohim the Holy Spirit) make man…” Later Genesis says, “YHWH Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” Elohim made Adam like a potter makes earthen vessels. Elohim was intimately involved in the creation of Adam (and Eve). Theistic evolution (totally oxymoron), however, says that the creative hand with which Elohim formed man was the process of death, suffering, and disease; that Elohim’s tender hand did not mold man out of mud, per say, but from soil blood-soaked from aeons of gratuitous carnage. Evolutionists would have you believe that the geological record demands millions of years. They will tell you that there exist fossils depicting cannibalism of beasts, disease, and cancer, and that these have been dated from tens to hundreds of million years in the past, and by implication, millions of years before any mythical “fall.” God created a perfect world. Evolution says that this perfect world was blood-soaked, cancer ridden and replete with suffering of all varieties. Need I go on? If the Bible as the Infallible Word of God is true, and evolution is also true, then Elohim’s perfect world Eden, and arguably Heaven also, is a world of gratuitous evils, a world He deemed to be tov me’od.
4) Think about it for a moment, if Elohim considers a world of gratuitous evils perfect, what does that say about Elohim? Elohim is a perfect being. What is perfection? Perfection is, as theistic evolution would philosophically force you to believe, the same as gratuitous evils. Elohim would then necessarily love gratuitous evils. Elohim, as a perfect being would necessarily be gratuitously evil. Elohim would neither be Good nor Love, Elohim would instead be Evil and Hate. Judeo-Christianity would then burn and crash to the ground. If Elohim were to consider gratuitous evils as good and perfect then Elohim would Himself be gratuitously evil.
5) We know from the Bible, however, that Elohim is Good, and Good to the highest degree; Elohim is loving and indeed is Love for it is written (1st John 4:8), “God is love” and (Mark 10:18), there is none good but one, that is, Elohim. Elohim’s goodness and love are reflected in his idea of a perfect world. As recorded in Genesis, Elohim’s notion of a perfect world is a world with no death, no suffering, no evils, where all the animals eat plants and not each other; such as what will be in the Everlasting Kingdom was in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, Death and suffering, and by implication evolution, could not have existed in Eden because Elohim’s own goodness and loving kindness disallows it. Hence, theistic evolution is a contradiction in terms. Elohim’s own nature disallows him from employing the process of evolution as a creative process. I will leave you with three quotes:
“[Natural] selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving a new species…The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts…I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” – Jacques Monod
“If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall. And if there had been no fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement, upon which the current teaching based Christian emotion and morality, collapsed like a house of cards.” -H.G. Wells
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” – G. Richard Bozarth
Always, and in all things, let God be glorified.
