The first is "Cosmic Evolution" - the idea that space, time, matter and energy somehow "exploded" (or expanded) from essentially nothing in the sudden "big bang" that was the birth of our universe. The second stage is "Stellar Evolution." Since the big bang is thought to have produced only Hydrogen, Helium and a variety of subatomic particles, these elements must have somehow condensed into stars through some sort of evolutionary process. The third stage is "Chemical Evolution." According to general thought, the only chemical elements produced by the Big Bang were Hydrogen and Helium (and possibly Lithium). As a result of the incredible heat and pressure within stars, these original elements somehow evolved into the other 88 naturally occurring chemical elements we observe today.

The fourth stage is "Planetary Evolution." The complex chemical elements thought to have evolved within ancient stars were somehow ejected, possibly at the violent deaths of stellar life cycles, releasing great clouds of swirling compounds. These clouds of chemical elements somehow formed finely-tuned solar systems, including our own. The fifth phase is "Organic Evolution" (also known as "spontaneous generation"). The theory is that the planet Earth began as a molten mass of matter a few billions years ago. It cooled off into solid, dry rock. Then, it rained on the rocks for millions of years, forming great oceans. Eventually, this "prebiotic rock soup" (water + rock) came alive and spawned the first self-replicating organic systems.

This is where the sixth phase of general evolutionary theory occurs -- "Macro Evolution." All living creatures are thought to share a common ancestor: a relatively "simple" single-celled organism, which evolved from inorganic matter (so-called, "rock soup"). Essentially, the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers, are all genetically related. Oh, we need to add one more... The seventh and final stage of the theory is "Micro Evolution." Micro Evolution is the variation and variety of traits expressed in sexually compatible "kinds" of organisms. Examples include the differences between various kinds of horses, dogs, cats, etc. This "variation within a kind" is what Darwin observed in the mid-1800's.

This is just what evolutionist believe, however, it IS false...

Evolution today is taught in schools and universities (and on the BBC) as fact. There is no mention that it is a theory for which hard scientific evidence is curiously missing. We are told that human beings and indeed all living creatures evolved over hundreds of millions of years from a common ancestor. The evolution of increasingly complex species was driven by natural selection working on random genetic changes, ensuring the survival of the fittest.

To deny the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution is as intellectually respectable as to believe in a flat earth. And yet the theory poses serious problems for many scientists and philosophers; and, for many, their doubts are not based on religion.

However, from the moment the theory was propounded it was clear that, if true, it posed serious problems for Christians. Evolutionists are for the most part explicitly materialistic. George Gaylord Simpson, an American scientist, for example, said “Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident that all the objective phenomena of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic or materialistic factors. They are readily explicable on the basis of differential reproduction ( the main factor in the modern conception of natural selection ) and of the mainly random interplay of the known processes of heredity. Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind”.

Another problem for Christians is the power of the current scientific mindset - epitomised by the statement of one of the most prominent evolutionists of the day, Professor Richard Dawkins, in his The Blind Watchmaker - 1986 - “It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that)”. Science has itself become a religion. Scientists behave as if non-science was non-sense. Many Christians feel reluctant to question scientific facts.

As a Christian, however, I could not accept that this was all due to random chance. God’s hand was in it. To be an evolutionist in the purest sense you have to believe that life is developed by random chance and you have to reject any supernatural intervention. This essay, therefore, is not intended for the eyes of evolutionists; they would all echo Dawkins’ view. It is intended rather to put forward for Christians some alternative ideas about the development of life on earth and of the origin of mankind.

So, where does a Christian start? We have to start with Divine Revelation and Divine Providence. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made”. (John I vv. 1-3). Christians believe that all Divine Wisdom and all Divine Truth is in the Word - the Holy Scriptures, the Old and the New Testaments. But we will obviously not find anything in the Bible specifically relating to evolution. When Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was first published, it was seen by many as undermining the relevance and authenticity of the Bible. Darwin’s theory was a stark contradiction of the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis. If that account was myth, might this not strike at the validity of the Bible as a whole? Might not the virgin birth, the resurrection and the miracles performed by Jesus also be mythical?

It is really rather surprising that the account of creation in Genesis could ever have been taken literally. The first few chapters of Genesis have a quite different character from the rest of the Bible. The stories of the Creation, of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, and of Noah and the Ark are a relic of a much older Word, predating Moses and the Prophets. Other books of that earlier Word ( which has been lost ) are mentioned in Moses and the Prophets. In Numbers XXI vv. 14 & 15 - “Wherefore it is said in the book of the Wars of the Lord”, referred to elsewhere as the book of “The Wars of Jehovah”. Again, in 2 Samuel I v. 18 David says “ .. Behold it is written in the Book of Jasher”.

From Genesis VII onwards, the Old Testament is partly historical and partly prophetic. If we are to accept the truth of the account of the Israelites in their progress from Egypt to the land of Canaan, we have to accept miracles - the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, the provision of manna and so on. The Israelites were not an attractive people; they frequently lapsed into idolatry, were self-centred and materialistic. The history of the Israelites could not be, as we believe, the container of Divine Wisdom if it did not also have a deeper meaning. Their progress from Egypt to the land of Canaan is factually true, but it is also allegorical, the progress of the human soul from ignorance of God and reliance on factual evidence ( Egypt ), through temptation ( forty years in the wilderness ) to regeneration ( crossing the river Jordan ) and acceptance in Heaven ( arrival in Canaan ). The allegorical meaning I have derived form the 18th century scientist/theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, in his book Arcana Caelestia. There is also a still deeper meaning. We read in Luke XXIV of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who met the risen Lord without recognising him (v. 27) “ ... and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself”.

Before returning to the question of evolution we need to see what the Bible tells us about Divine Providence. We know from the first chapter of John - already quoted above - that “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made”. Divine Providence is in every particular. In all the history of the Israelites Jehovah takes a direct hand in events, determining the outcome of battles, on occasions destroying the enemy, who all represent evils, without the Israelites even having to wield a sword. Jesus tells us that God is involved even when a sparrow falls. This is not to say that everything that happens is God’s will. God is goodness itself and cannot will anything evil. And yet evil is all around us. Evil comes wholly from man and is an inescapable concomitant of God’s gift to man of free will.

By free will I do not mean the common concept amongst modern philosophers - to quote Provine of Cornell University - “ .. the freedom to make un-coerced and unpredictable choices among alternative courses of action”. Prof. Provine goes on to say about this concept - “it simply does not exist. There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices.” “Free Will’ for a Christian is the freedom to choose to obey God’s commandments or to reject them. In other words the freedom to choose between good and evil. One’s choices are, of course, heavily influenced by heredity and environment, but the Christian doctrine of regeneration means that man is judged by his works. We can either give in to hereditary desires or we can, with God’s help, resist them and seek to love God and and to love our neighbour.

Man was made to love God and to love his fellow men; and true love cannot be forced. So man has the freedom to choose to love God, and this means that he is also free to love worldly things, his own self-interest, power for the sake of commanding others and wealth for its own sake - thus to love evil. So if, as Christians believe, Divine Providence is in particulars, involved in absolutely everything that happens in the universe, what is God’s relationship to evil? The answer must be that he permits it and strives, constantly to turn it to good use. The process of regeneration - to be born again of the spirit rather than of the flesh - is that of overcoming temptations. The temptations are evil and are being put to good use.

Providence acts in the context of eternity. We must not, like some modern theologians (Sir John Polkinghorne, for example, and my old tutor at Oxford, Austin Farrer) place God wholly in the material universe. God made ‘the seen and the unseen’ (the Nicene Creed). He is concerned with this world as the seminary of the next. His purpose for man is eternal usefulness in heaven. God’s intervention in the outcome of accidents is not primarily concerned with the material well-being of survivors or of the relatives of those who have died, but with the welfare of their eternal souls. Death for Christians is not the end; it is a new beginning.

I wonder whether the latest developments in cosmology will encourage theologians and philosophers to be less materialistic. I am beginning to have doubts about the Big Bang. I saw a documentary film a couple of years ago about the Hubble telescope. It was mainly concerned with the amazing technological achievement of repairing the telescope in space, but it also mentioned (without comment) some of its most significant findings. They were, first, that the Universe is rather younger than previously thought - around 12 billion years and not 16. But much the most extraordinary finding was that the telescope can now photograph galaxies of about that age. Cosmologists were expecting to find the earliest galaxies still unformed, in process of condensing into stars. But every single galaxy was mature and fully formed. The documentary went on to say that a new and more powerful telescope was to be built. What might such a telescope find? Cosmologists might find that there are in fact a few signs of galaxies further than twelve billion light years away; and they might turn out to be what they are hoping for, namely galaxies in process of condensing. But, they too might be fully formed. Or more likely, they may find that their initial calculation of the age of the Universe was right and that there was absolutely nothing to be seen beyond twelve billion light years. It is beginning to look to me that all galaxies were fully formed at birth! So, where does that leave Big Bang and galactic evolution? It begins to look as if science will come to conclude that the universe is eternal. But again, I am sure that it will be many years, perhaps many centuries, before cosmologists accept that conclusion - supernatural intervention again.
Let us now look again at evolution. I want to explore this in two parts; first the development of life on earth up to the primate apes and secondly the creation of Man. The true evolutionist position is not compatible with religion. As Provine, quoted above, says “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” Richard Dawkins has said that the theory of evolution allows him to be “a fulfilled atheist”. So no Christian can accept the full blooded evolutionary theory. It might, however, still be possible that all living creatures (and plants) had a common ancestor. That would be evolution, but the Christian would attribute the guiding force behind it to God rather than to random chance and natural selection.

But did all creatures develop from a common ancestor? We are told that the fossil record shows a progression of increasing complexity from single cell amoeba through fish (and plants) to amphibians, reptiles, mammals, primate s and eventually Man. But is this what the fossil record actually shows? The answer seems to me to be emphatically ‘no’. If all creatures had gradually evolved over millions of years by small changes, cumulatively becoming increasingly complex as changes increased their fitness to survive, the fossil record would show thousands of intermediate forms. Darwin himself recognised that, in his time, there was a marked dearth of such fossils, but with some plausibility - the study of fossils was very recent in his time - was confident enough that ‘missing links’ would be found.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years later none has been found. Richard Milton in The Facts of Life says “no-one has yet discovered a fossil creature that is indisputably transitional between one species and another. Not a single undoubted ‘missing link’ has been found in all the exposed rocks of the earth’s crust despite the most careful and extensive searches.” Many species have, of course, shown variations. Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches are a case in point - but despite their changes they are all still indisputably finches; they have not become, nor are they on the way to becoming, new species.

What the fossil record actually seems to show is a quite remarkable stability in species - no transitional specimens - and all new species appear suddenly, fully formed. As Phillip Johnson (a distinguished American lawyer) says in Darwin on Trial: “ ... the prevailing characteristic of fossil species is stasis - the absence of change”. As Michael Denton says in Evolution. A Theory in Crisis - “ ... the last ichthyosaurus by which the genus disappears in chalk is hardly distinguishable from the first ichthyosaurus which abruptly introduces that strange form of sea-lizard in the Lias. The oldest pterodactyl is as thorough and complete a one as the latest.”