“Does evolution contradict the Christian faith?”

Steve Brown:
Does evolution contradict the Christian faith? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still love them anyway, that teaching raises a lot of questions. So, here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with answers to the Bible that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi, Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. That’s going to be a good one. We’ll get into that.

Steve Brown:
And we’re going to get in trouble cause there’s no way we can answer that question without offending some people.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I just want you to know that. Hey, that’s Pete Alwinson and his ministry is called Forge, and it is an incredible ministry touching so many men. You ought to check it out ForgeTruth.com and if you haven’t read the book Like Father Like Son, it’s a life-changing book and I can’t imagine anybody in the universe who hasn’t. But if you haven’t, you can get it from us or Amazon or any place where good books are sold. It’s called Like Father Like Son. As you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions and we love your questions. You can ask a question, 24 7, 1-800-KEY-LIFE. Just dial that number and follow the instructions, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your questions to

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or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And if you can help us financially, please do. You can charge it on your credit card, include it in your envelope, and I promise we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t, we understand. Do say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray. Our Great God, we do come to you on this Friday and at the end of this week, Lord, we know that you are outside of time and you are a God who walks with us every day. We praise you. We worship you for being a God who has transcendent high and holy and lifted up. And yet, a God who is imminent right near us in all of your fullness. Lord, help us to remember that you are right near us. And so, we honor you and praise you and this week-end we look forward to being in church, being with your people live and being able to experience the joy of worshiping and being taught by your leaders and priests and pastors and worship directors. We pray that your church would bring glory and honor to your holy name this week-end. We need you in so many ways, you know our needs. And we ask even now, during this time of Q&A, that as we try to answer these questions, you would give grace to us as well as grace to your people and meeting the needs that they have. We commit all these things to you in Jesus’ strong name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. All right Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I am a Christian college student enrolled in an anthropology class right now, which is the study of human evolution. And something my teacher said was that early human fossil records showed that humans came from jungles. And that they had curved feet, which were useful for grabbing on the stuff. And I think the point she is trying to get at is that humans evolved from monkeys. And if that happened to be true, would that contradict the Bible saying that man was made in the image of God and not other animals?

Steve Brown:
I’m going to suggest, that’s a good question. And by the way, don’t be intimidated by college professors. The Christian faith is the most rational, balanced, defendable, philosophical, and metaphysical and religious position that has ever been on the face of the earth. In a way that science is not, if you have a science textbook, and it’s older than 10 years, burn it, it’s no longer relevant. If you have a Bible you can keep it. So, I just want to say that at the beginning, but to your specific question, what about evolution?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, the church has struggled with this even before the onset of Charles Darwin. And so, it has been an issue, but the fossil record, and you have many different perspectives. Hugh Ross has a perspective.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And he’s one of the men that we look to, he’s incredible and in so many areas of science. I believe he believes in theistic evolution, a God overseeing evolution. I’m not sure exactly, but many do.

Steve Brown:
Now, he does not believe in cross species evolution. He would say that your anthropology professor is full of it. He would say that’s not, but he does believe, he doesn’t believe in an early earth and he believes there are evolution that has taken over a long period of time. And before you finish cause you were already, I interrupted you. Go to reasons.com the name of his ministry and that of many scientists is called Reasons to Believe. And their website is reasons.com. Oh yeah, it’s reasons.org sorry. Only mistake I ever make, the other time I made a mistake was when I thought I made a mistake.

Pete Alwinson:
And you really didn’t.

Steve Brown:
And I really didn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right, right. No, so that’s important and I really appreciate you bringing this up. Study it. I’m not of the conviction of evolution and that the human beings, the fossil record, in my opinion, does not prove human evolution or evolution of any kind.

Steve Brown:
Right. I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
There are fossils, no doubt about it. And there are also extinct species out there, many of them. So, you’ll find good, logical, well-reasoned Christians on both sides of this debate. I think ultimately a Christian has to say, we believe that God created heaven and earth and he created. And that’s very clear in Scripture. And I think the tenor of the Bible as you read it, Genesis to Revelation supports Fiat Creation. I think, just as you read the Bible naturally, where God created us, but it doesn’t exclude the possibility of an evolutionary period of time, as long as God is the author and the overseer of the whole process.

Steve Brown:
Some have pointed out and others have said this isn’t true, generally the word that’s translated day means the 24 hour day. But in fact, the Hebrew word for day is a word that is used also for age or eon. And so, Francis Schaeffer, the late Francis Schaeffer, who by the way was a friend of mine, said what you said, that it’s perfectly permissible to see that is being an age and that the one place we wouldn’t compromise would be in a literal space time, Adam and Eve. Because the infrastructure of Christian theology is built on that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And I agree with that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep. Absolutely. So there’s, you’re sort of an that answer to is it inconsistent? Atheistic evolution is inconsistent with Christianity. But a Biblically informed evolution is not.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s true. Even though that wouldn’t be our position.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, exactly.

Steve Brown:
Okay. What’s your position on eschatology?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. That’s the study of end times and it’s God, the end times are in God’s hands. And it’s

Steve Brown:
You’re going to cop out, aren’t you?

Pete Alwinson:
No. It’s a fascinating study and really the New Testament church thought Jesus was going to return quite rapidly.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Go to Matthew 24, read Matthew 24, then read Revelation. Matthew 24 is the shorter form of what you see, more pictorially in the Book of Revelation. But Jesus comes back. We are raptured to be with him. There is a final judgment and there are many elements that we have to look at. There is going to be an antichrist, so a lot of those elements are very clearly laid out.

Steve Brown:
They really are. And I, and there’s as many views about eschatology as there are Christians. Don’t build fellowship on that and don’t chisel it in concrete. My late mentor and friend, Addison Leach said he thinks we all got it wrong and that in the, as we move to that time, somebody probably a layman, probably a janitor in a large building who has some time to think about it is going to say, I’ve got it. And everybody else is going to say, you know, he does, he’s right and we’ve missed it all along. But your bottom line is in the end, Jesus wins.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And it’s going to be, it’s going to be covered up, covered by him. How can I trust, this is an e-mail. How can I trust God who allows such pain and suffering? Does he really love us?

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, the age old problem of pain, the problem of theodicy, right? And you know, why doesn’t God do something about all this? Well, in fact, he has, he has sent Jesus to redeem the world and the only reason he hasn’t brought it to an end is there’s still more people to come to faith in Christ.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
So, he walks with us in the midst of all of our suffering. He promises to teach us and hold us in it. So, he is done and ultimately he’s going to remove all of it. So

Steve Brown:
And he entered time in space and did the suffering himself.

Pete Alwinson:
He did, absolutely. And so

And he’s experienced all things as we have yet without sin.

So, you know, I mean this, he really does love us and he really is about making all things new.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true.

Pete Alwinson:
But in his time, not ours.

Steve Brown:
You know, there’s a wonderful, by the way, you might want to get C.S. Lewis’ book, The Problem of Pain. But this is a very big issue. It’s maybe the biggest issue there is. And you’ve got to think it through. And if you believe that there’s a good God, even though there’s legitimate suffering and pain and darkness, that’s a statement of faith. If you believe there is no God, certainly not a good one because of that, that’s a statement of faith too. So, you need to pursue it. And you need to think about it. C.S. Lewis said, if God is good, he’s like a surgeon who’s a good surgeon. And the more you scream and cuss and spit and beg him to stop, he won’t stop because he’s a good surgeon and he wants you to be well. And he said if he’s a drunk or a bad guy, that’s a different thing altogether. So, think those issues through and really study them and come up with your own views.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, and Paul, he says to the Corinthians.

He comforts us at our affliction that we might comfort others in theirs.

So, there is a reciprocal relationship there.

Steve Brown:
Good stuff. Guys, we’ve got to go. We love your taking your time to be with us. And one other thing before we do go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.