Emory Moynagh
[Originally published as Understanding Your Opponent]
Recently I stumbled upon an article by a pastor and former president of a theological cemetery—err seminary—entitled “Fighting Over Evolution? Why?” in which he explicitly endorses evolution as compatible with Christianity.
I just have to wonder how someone that confused can pastor a church, let alone lead a divinity school. Along with displaying spectacular bias and myopic misunderstanding and misrepresentation of creation science, this article actually illustrates the importance of understanding what your opponents believe so you can adequately refute it, and come to a full understanding of your own ideology.
This gentleman understands neither.
First let us correct this gentleman’s understanding of evolution. His explanation for evolution is incredibly simplistic and wildly inaccurate. He clearly has done no research about the topic and has simply swallowed the consensus lie hook, line, and sinker. It’s almost as if he is getting his talking points from internet atheists.
He defines evolution as: “Evolution may take a long time, but over deep time species change. That’s it. Simple, eh.”
It is pretty simple…too simple actually. See, evolution is not just species changing, or even the origination of new species. If it was, I would be an evolutionist and so would every single other creation scientist.
Evolution in the strictest biological sense is composed of three things:
- Origin of life
- Origin of types
- Origin of species
The evolutionists like to kick the first one out since they don’t have a clue how it could have happened. However, they do not get a pass on this because until they can explain that, they have no business speculating on the other two, since they can’t happen if there is no life to work with.
Assuming they somehow get life, they have another problem with the origin of types. DNA is mutating downhill at an astronomical pace. New information—a requirement for the development of new traits—is not being generated. It has never been observed, nor has the development of a new basic type. Both of these would be necessary for evolution to occur.
The origin of new species, however, is not an issue. This is in the zone of overlap between creation and evolution perspectives. Both agree that speciation happens. Evolutionists just generally don’t like to acknowledge creationists’ true position on this because it’s much easier to attack a strawman of the creationist position than to address the real one.
There are three more types of evolution that are used more colloquially but sometimes are used by professional evolutionists as well. To have a full view of origins there needs to be an origin of:
- Time, space, and matter,
- An origin of chemicals,
- And an origin of stars.
All of these are highly problematic for reasons far too complex to go into here. However, the point remains, evolution is far more than simply species changing into new species over time.
Not only does this gentleman not understand his own position, he does not understand his opponent’s either. He contends that creation scientists argue that no new species form. Again, I have to ask, is he getting his talking points from internet atheists? Because if he had read a single article on this site, the Creation Ministries International site, the Answers in Genesis website, the Creation Today website, the Institute for Creation Research site, the Biblical Science Institute website, and many dozens of others, he would know speciation is something we accept, promote and defend.
In fact, we do so to the point where some evolutionists who are slightly more knowledgeable about what creationists believe have accused us of being “hyper-evolutionists” because we believe speciation happens much faster than they want it to happen!
Unfortunately, this gentleman exemplifies something common about theistic evolutionists. He has little to no knowledge of creationist positions. He ranks slightly towards the lower end of understanding his own position than most theistic evolutionists though, assuming he is not deliberately muddying the waters.
Given he does not address any of the theological problems theistic evolution creates, of which there is a multitude, I just have to wonder whether he has seriously considered his own position. If he has, I would love to hear how he explains death before sin, why we have sin at all, and any of the numerous other theological issues that are inherent with theistic evolution. I suspect he has no theological, or scientific basis for his ideas. He is accepting them on faith from purely secular sources, which is incredibly foolish.
Great article.