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Chapter 7

The Dangerous Route of Compromise

In preceding chapters we have shown that none of the expedients proposed for accommodating evolution and the geological ages in the Bible will work. All of them dishonor the Scriptures while seeking to satisfy majority scientific opinion, wresting them from their intended meaning in the hope of gaining a more sympathetic hearing for Christianity from the intellectual community.

But such compromises never work. The evolutionists just keep demanding more and more compromises; nothing short of total atheism will ever satisfy them! Furthermore, those Christians and Christian organizations that choose to travel this road are in grave danger, for the compromise mentality is reluctant ever to take a firm stand against the pressures and temptations of the world. The compromise road eventually ends in a precipice. Those who travel this broad highway will end up either in apostasy or oblivion as far as their Christian ministry is concerned.

“How long halt ye between two opinions?” was the challenge of the prophet Elijah to the people of God in his day. “If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24). We must follow the lead of Joshua, who commanded God’s people to “choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).

In short, Christians ought to decide either to believe God’s Word all the way, or not at all. “I would thou wert cold or hot,” said the Lord Jesus to the compromising evangelical church at Laodicea, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16).

In this chapter we shall illustrate by example both the futility and the dangers of such compromise.

The Intransigence of Evolutionists

Those who try to accommodate evolution as God’s method of creation or who try to make the days of creation into the ages of geology may succeed in winning followers among professing Christians, but they rarely if ever win over any of the leaders of evolutionary thought. The latter are not interested in compromise, and they distrust those who are. They realize full well that evolution and the geological-age system are thoroughly incompatible with the Christian God of love and mercy, and they have little sympathy for Christians who ignore this obvious truth. For example, not long before his death, the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod, a thorough-going humanist, said this:

Natural selection is the blindest and most cruel way of evolving new species. . . . 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.1

Similarly, A. J. Mattell accuses such compromising Christians not just of indifference to animal suffering but of outright dishonesty.

Many Christians have taken the dishonest way of lengthening the days into millions of years, but creationists make it clear that such an approach is nothing but a makeshift that is unacceptable biblically and scientifically.2

Mattell is neither a creationist nor a Christian, but he clearly has more respect for the honesty (if not the beliefs) of strict creationists than for the compromises of theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists.

The familiar Genesis story about Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage is mentioned in the New Testament as a warning to professing Christians who are being tempted to compromise in order to gain temporary favor with the world. Don’t be like Esau, the writer says in effect, “who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright” (Heb. 12:16).

This very pertinent warning, however, has been given a novel twist by Michael Ruse, one of the leading anti-creationists of our time, a professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, in Ontario. Ruse has devoted much of his time in recent years to defending Darwinism and fighting creationism. He has written books on the subject, participated in creation/evolution debates, and served as a witness for the evolutionists in opposing the proposed creation law in Arkansas.

However, he was brought up in a Quaker family, was familiar with the Scriptures, and has even admitted (to the chagrin of his evolutionary colleagues) that he “likes” creationists personally. He was weaned away from Christianity in college by evolutionary teaching and his unhappiness with the “exclusive” nature of the Christian gospel.

A recent issue of Zygon, a journal devoted to discussing the relation between science and religion, was dedicated to him and his writings. In discussing his background, Ruse made the following striking comment:

I am sorry to be so rude about this [not that sorry!], but perhaps my indignation is a good point on which to go out. . . . I really want to believe. I find the goodies offered by Christianity extremely attractive. But I am d — d [again!] if I am going to sell my evolutionary birthright for a mess of religious pottage.3

Despite his undoubted erudition, Professor Ruse — like Esau — has made a very bad bargain. To dismiss the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal salvation it purchased for all who follow Him as merely a mess of religious pottage, and to cling to such an unproved, unreasonable, impossible system as evolutionism as though it were a precious birthright to be retained at all costs, that is a poor bargain! As Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

At least Dr. Ruse understands the issue — probably better than most Christians, in fact — and so he cannot plead ignorance when he eventually faces his Creator, as someday he certainly will. He expresses the choice thus:

Either humankind is in a state of original sin or it is not. If it is, then there was reason for Jesus to die on the cross. If it is not, Calvary has as much relevance as a gladiator’s death in the Coliseum.4

It is evident that the distinguished professor does clearly understand the importance of the sin question. Death is the penalty for sin and, since all men are sinners, only the substitutionary death of the sinless Son of God can atone for sin and provide salvation.

It was, therefore, necessary for God to become man — for the Creator also to become the Redeemer — in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Michael Ruse understands this also:

Either Jesus Christ was the Son of God or He was not. If He was, other religions are false. Missionaries — Jesuits past and Evangelicals at present — are right about this. If He was not, Christianity is a fraud — no salvation, no heaven, no nothing.5

Yes, Ruse understands, all right, at least with his mind. But, in his heart, he refuses to believe, because he knows that his precious evolutionary “birthright” logically would have to be renounced, along with all worldly fame.

It is remarkable, on the other hand, that so many professing Christians feel that they can somehow accommodate evolution in their Christian faith, when the evolutionists themselves (at least the leaders, rather than the followers, of evolutionary thought) practically all say it can’t be done.

A current leader in the field of evolutionary philosophy, Dr. David Hull, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, says:

The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain, and horror.6

With respect to the character of any “god” who would use evolution as his process of evolution, Hull goes on to observe:

The God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history . . . is not a loving God who cares about his productions. He is . . . careless, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.7

Charles Darwin himself long ago recognized this diabolical character of evolution.

Darwin himself commented most forcefully upon the inefficient and basically unpleasant character of his process, writing to his friend Joseph Hooker in 1856: “What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering law, and horribly cruel works of nature!”8

Why is it so difficult for theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists to see the complete incompatibility of the idea of a billion years of suffering and death among billions of animals (including presumed pre-Adamite “men”), as supposedly documented in the fossil record of the evolutionary ages of geology, with the biblical revelation of an omniscient, loving Creator?

It is not because the scientific evidence requires them to believe in these long ages of evolution. Even Darwin’s real reason for developing his theory of evolution was not to explain the scientific evidence, but rather to get away from the Christian idea of God, the God of the Bible.

Although he originally studied to be an Anglican clergyman, Darwin began to have serious doubts about Christianity long before he wrote The Origin of Species. Here is his testimony.

Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. . . . I can indeed hardly see how anyone could wish Christianity to be true, for if so . . . my father, brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.9

And so Darwin traded his birthright, what he called the “damnable doctrine” of the saving grace of Christ, for the pottage of what he called “the horribly cruel works of nature.” This was not because of his science, but because of his deliberate and arbitrary rejection of God’s Word.

The same seems to be true of Michael Ruse. His low view of Christianity is set forth in the following diatribe.

Some of the problems of Christianity strike me as being so blatantly rational-belief-destroying that there is almost a sense of farce in seeing its devotees trying to wriggle from under them. Chief among these is the problem of explaining how somebody’s death two thousand years ago can wash away my sins. When you combine this with the doctrine of the Trinity and the implication that the sacrificial lamb is God himself (or itself) and that this therefore makes things all right with this self-same God, the rational mind boggles.10

Perhaps Dr. Ruse’s mind boggles at the saving gospel of Christ, but there have been millions of men and women of rational mind throughout the Christian era who have found profound mental — as well as spiritual — peace only in this great redemptive revelation of God. Rather than bringing the Bible into disrepute, Ruse is fulfilling one of its ancient prophecies: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

At least Michael Ruse does have a realistic insight concerning the impossibility of trying to merge the Christian and evolutionary world views.

I have a loathing of attempts to meld science and religion which entail the trimming of religion in such a way that it fits with science, but at the cost of gelding it of real content and mystery — attempts which include the traditional varieties of evolutionary humanism, based all too often on so-called “noble lies” or just plain bad arguments.11

Again, we would urge our evangelical brethren not to yield to the increasingly powerful temptation to trade away their noble biblical, creationist, Christian birthright for an insubstantial (yet toxic) mess of evolutionary pottage.

No Need for God

In addition to accusing God (unintentionally, no doubt, but nevertheless in reality) of cruelty and involving themselves in dishonesty (and all to no avail!) such fence-straddling in effect, does away with God altogether. Dr. William Provine, a widely known and very influential professor of the history and philosophy of science at Cornell University, has noted this point. First, however, he stresses the atheistic character of evolutionary theory and its advocates.

The conflict is fundamental and goes much deeper than modern liberal theologians, religious leaders, and scientists are willing to admit. Most contemporary scientists, the majority of them by far, are atheists or something very close to that. And among evolutionary biologists, I would challenge the reader to name the prominent scientists who are “devoutly religious.” I am skeptical that one could get beyond the fingers of one hand. Indeed, I would be interested to learn of a single one.12

Having made this point, Dr. Provine goes on to expose the utter inconsistency of Christians who try to impose God on the evolutionary process.

A widespread theological view now exists saying that God started off the world, props it up, and works through the laws of nature, very subtly, so subtly that his action is undetectable. But that kind of God is no different to my mind than atheism. To anyone who adopts this view I say, “Great, we’re in the same camp; now where do we get our morals if the universe just goes grinding on as it does?” This kind of God does nothing outside of the laws of nature, gives us no immortality nor foundation for morals, or any of the things that we want from a God and from religion.13

In the same vein, James Rachels, a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama, points out the redundant character of such a God.

Suppose God is somehow involved in the process that evolutionary biologists since Darwin have been describing. This would mean that he has created a situation in which his own involvement is so totally hidden that the process gives every appearance of operating without any guiding hand at all. . . . But if it is reasonable for us to believe that, then it is reasonable for us to reject the theistic interpretation.14

Provine and Rachels, of course (as well as many others who could be cited if necessary), are merely echoing the famous words of Sir Julian Huxley, this century’s chief protagonist of neo-Darwinism and the keynote speaker at the great Darwinian Centennial Convocation at the University of Chicago in 1959. There, in eulogizing Darwin and commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, Huxley made the following pronouncement:

Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion.15

That is, Sir Julian, speaking to and for the world’s leaders in evolutionary thought, quite rightly pointed out that the very idea of God is redundant, even irrational, if evolution can indeed explain the origin and development of all things. Why insert an unnecessary factor into the equation when it is not needed? If total evolution is really a proved fact of science, as its devotees like to claim, then Huxley and Provine and their colleagues are quite right in their assertion that God is redundant and therefore non-existent.

Of course, our compromising Christians disagree with this, claiming either that God is behind the scenes directing evolution or else (in the case of the “progressive creationists”) interjecting various acts of special creation from time to time into the age-long evolutionary process. But that is exactly what Huxley rightly says is irrational. There is no scientific evidence for either theistic evolution or progressive creation, as distinct from non-theistic evolution. The same natural processes, the same fossil sequences, the same genetic comparisons apply in all of them. These compromise theories are philosophical whimsies, not scientific ideas. And certainly, as we have seen, the Bible gives us no indication, much less support, of either evolution or geological ages.

The truth is, however, that evolution is not a proved fact of science, and, therefore, God is necessary to account for this world. As shown persuasively in Volume 2 of this Trilogy, evolution is, if anything, a disproved “fact” of science! There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that evolution is occurring at present or that it ever occurred in the past, or ever could occur at all.

There is, therefore, no scientific need whatever for Christians to try to accommodate this false and harmful world view — or any part of it — into their biblical interpretations. The honest course is either to accept the Bible as it is, the inerrant Word of the living God, or else to follow Huxley and Asimov and Rachels and Gould, and reject it altogether! The middle of the road is a dangerous place to walk, and fence-straddling will sooner or later become very uncomfortable.

Once the literal historicity of the Genesis record is abandoned or made into a mere literary framework (or even worse, ignored), it is only a matter of time before the whole structure of the Christian belief system collapses. As Mattell has noted (with satisfaction, from his atheistic perspective):

Those liberal and neo-orthodox Christians who regard the creation stories as myths or allegories are undermining the rest of Scripture, for if there was no Adam, there was no fall; and if there was no fall, there was no hell; and if there was no hell, there was no need of Jesus as Second Adam and Incarnate Savior, crucified and risen. As a result, the whole biblical system of salvation collapses. . . . Evolution thus becomes the most potent weapon for destroying the Christian faith.16

Compromising God’s Character

However noble may be their intent when they compromise Genesis to try to win committed evolutionists to belief in the God of the Bible, the compromisers will fail. Once again, the main reason that they will certainly fail is because these evolutionists know enough about their theory to recognize that it simply cannot be squared with the biblical revelation of the character of God.

The Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, Holmes Rolston III, expressed this irreconcilable conflict as follows:

Biologists believe in Genesis, but if a biologist begins reading Genesis, the opening story seems incredible. The trouble is not so much the six days of creation in chapters 1 and 2, though most of the controversy is usually thought to lie there, as in chapter 3, where, spoiling the Garden Earth, the first couple fall and Earth becomes cursed. . . . The real problem is with the Fall, when a once-paradisaical nature becomes recalcitrant as a punishment for human sin.17

Dr. Rolston indicates that he might be open to the idea that the six days of creation correspond to the geological ages, but he cannot believe that the age-long reign of suffering and death resulted from human sin:

That does not fit into the biological paradigm at all. Suffering in a harsh world did not enter chronologically after sin and on account of it.18

The Bible says that it did, however, and that’s the problem. Such doctrinaire evolutionists as Rolston and the others cited can read the Bible, and they also know that a God of love would never impose such a cruel regime on the animal world for any other reason.

But nature is also where the fittest survive, “red in tooth and claw,” fierce and indifferent, a scene of hunger, disease, death. And nature is what it is regardless of human moral failings, indeed regardless of humans at all.19

The accommodationist interpreters, whether they call themselves theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, or even “gap theorists” — all of whom accept the geological ages with their billions of fossils of dead animals preserved in the sedimentary rocks — seem to have very little sensitivity to (or understanding of) God’s revealed purpose and ideal order in the animal kingdom. They may acknowledge that human suffering and death came into the world only when Adam sinned, but they cannot explain why God allowed multiplied billions of animals to suffer and die during the supposed billion years of life history before man was created.

Nor can they explain why, after Adam did sin and God pronounced the curse on Adam and “the whole creation” (Rom. 8:22) that God only then allowed the death of certain specified animals to represent an “atonement” (Lev. 17:11) for the sins of human beings. These same kinds of animals supposedly had already been living and dying for millions upon millions of years before any human sin.

As noted before in the discussion of “Creation and Ecology” (chapter 6), there is a beautiful picture given in the Bible of the divinely intended relationships in God’s animal kingdom:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:6–9; see also Isa. 65:25; Ezek. 34:25; Hos. 2:18; etc.).

Whether this passage describes conditions on the earth in the coming kingdom age after Christ returns to earth or not, it undeniably describes the ideal conditions intended by God for His animal creation. Therefore, this must have been the way it was in the beginning, after God had completed His creation work and surveyed it with deep satisfaction. “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Therefore, “God ended his work which he had made; and . . . rested from all his work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:2–3).

God cared for the animals, placing them under man’s stewardship, even authorizing Adam to examine and name them (Gen. 2:19–20). Furthermore, there was an abundance of food for all of them (Gen. 1:30), and definitely no “struggle for existence.” The 19th century depiction of “nature red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson) was diametrically opposite to the true picture of the primeval creation as revealed in God’s Word. At that time, all the animals were herbivorous and at peace with one another and with man.

That is not the way it is now, of course, for “sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” so that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 5:12; 8:22). God had to tell Adam: “Cursed is the ground [same as ‘earth’] for thy sake” (Gen. 3:17), and Adam’s whole “dominion” (Gen. 1:28) came tragically down with him.

Evolutionists, however, have long regarded this groaning and struggling in nature as the basic means of evolutionary progress. The conclusion of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species even seems to glory in this state of suffering and death:

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life.20

Now, strange and sad to say, a number of leading evangelicals — those espousing either theistic evolution or progressive creation — in their wistful attempt to hang on to the vast geological “ages” of the evolutionists, seem to agree in general with “this view of life.” That is, they also explain suffering and death in the animal kingdom not as a result of God’s curse on the creation because of sin, but as a necessary component of the balance of nature. For example, physicist Don Stoner says:

There is scientific evidence that many creatures, from before the time of men, ate other animals. The evidence says there was animal death before Adam.21

Of the many modern progressive creationists who hold similar views, one of the most influential is Hugh Ross. In his recent book (which is mainly a polemic against “young earth creationists,” especially at the Institute for Creation Research), Dr. Ross says this:

An organism’s place in the food chain determines its capacity for efficient work. . . . Considering how creatures convert chemical energy into kinetic energy, we can say that carnivorous activity results from the laws of thermodynamics, not from sin . . . we cannot realistically compare the suffering and death of animals to the suffering and death of humans.22

Thus, progressive creationists see no theological or biblical problems with having animal death prior to human sin, nor in the idea of billions of animals suffering and dying long before God got around to placing them under man’s dominion (whatever that could mean, after the animals had already been around for a billion years).

Literal creationists do have problems with this idea, however. The concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, loving, caring God devising such a scheme seems completely incongruous!

Knowledgeable evolutionists have difficulty with it, too. For example, Stephen Jay Gould, probably this nation’s most influential evolutionist, emphasizes not only the cruelty of natural history, but also its randomness, with no indication of direction or purpose.

Moreover, natural selection, expressed in appropriate human terms, is a remarkably inefficient, even cruel process. Selection carves adaptation by eliminating masses of the less fit — imposing hecatombs of death as preconditions for limited increments of change. Natural selection is a theory of “trial and error externalism” — organisms propose via their storehouse of information, and environments dispose of nearly all — not an efficient and human “goal-directed internalism” (which would be fast and lovely, but nature does not know the way).23

Dr. Hugh Ross tries to mitigate the harshness of the process by saying that some kind of “mini-creation” process is activated every time a new species appears, maintaining that these millions of mini-creations that he postulates make him a creationist. It is obvious, however, that such a system is merely theistic evolution under another name. In any case, it does not do away with the utter cruelty and randomness of the whole monstrous system. How can we dare blame God for such a thing? Gould’s atheism is much more logical than so-called “progressive creationism”! As mentioned earlier, Dr. David Hull, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, has said:

Whatever the God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like. . . . He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.24

Or, as Dr. Gould said, in an earlier article:

You can hardly blame the divine Paley for not even imagining such a devilish mechanism.25

The God of the Bible is neither capricious nor cruel, and it is a mistake to think that He would use the “devilish mechanism” of billions of years of trial-and-error variation, struggle, suffering, and death in the animal world as prologue to His great plan for creating and redeeming men and women.

His creative purpose, instead, was that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” Anything other than that can only be rightly understood as a later intrusion into God’s “very good” creation.

The leaders of evolutionary thought are indeed intractable. They will never be persuaded by any amount of compromise. Compromise on this vital subject is, in the long run, futile — and perilous!

The Sad Results of Compromise

Indeed, it is dangerous for those that get involved in compromise of creation. One compromise leads to another. Once the safe haven of absolute biblical inerrant authority is left behind, there is no satisfactory or secure resting place. Following the shifting winds of secular intellectual opinion often leads to spiritual shipwreck.

The life and death of Charles Darwin himself is a case in point. Although he has received the adulation of the world for over a century, and was buried with high honors in Westminster Abbey, he never knew peace himself after once placing his faith in evolution. As one of his many biographers, Irving Stone, has noted:

Darwin returned to England at 27 in a robust state of mind and body. It was not until a year later, when he began to write in his evolutionary notebooks, that he first felt and commented on his illnesses, forcing himself into a lifetime of severe, repugnant, and sometimes ludicrous disability.26

Darwin complained all during his life of his constant illnesses, and entire books have been written just about this aspect of his life. Yet in the most exhaustive and modern volume on this subject, a book entitled To Be an Invalid, the author, Dr. Ralph Cox, concludes that there was nothing organically or physically wrong with Darwin at all. His granddaughter, Nora Barlow, who edited his autobiography, said he was a hypochondriac.

The biographer Irving Stone, who is an ardent evolutionary humanist and profound admirer of Charles Darwin, attributed all his troubles to the intense conflicts generated by his evolutionary theory, blaming the opposition of the Christians and creationists of Darwin’s day. Stone does acknowledge, however, that Darwin hated to “think about the demon of evolution he had released upon an unwilling and unprepared world.”27

Whatever the cause, Charles Darwin was a vigorous, healthy, almost happy-go-lucky young man before he was converted to evolution, but a man of sickly body and troubled mind all his life thereafter. Stone also is anxious to repudiate the widely circulated story of Darwin’s repentance and conversion during his final days:

Upon word of his death, his detractors circulated a rumor that he had repented on his deathbed, and asked God’s forgiveness for his blasphemies. There was not an iota of truth to the charge, yet it still surfaces today, presented as fact by those who would like to believe it.28

It is not surprising, of course, that belief in evolution leads eventually to inward conviction of guilt, and outward conflict and turmoil. If God does indeed exist, and we are indeed His creatures (and this is surely the teaching of the Bible and of all true science), then our very minds and hearts are bound to be programmed God-ward. Rebellion against God — whether in terms of philosophical denial, active disobedience, or careless neglect — is bound, therefore, ultimately to deprive mind and heart and body of the spiritual sustenance they require from their offended Creator.

It is well-known that Darwin studied for the Anglican ministry, though his heart was never really in it. He at least professed nominal belief in biblical creationism in his younger days, but was easily led to believe in progressive creationism when Charles Lyell put forth his arguments for uniformitarianism and the long geological ages. This progressed into theistic evolutionism, and Darwin soon repudiated Christianity altogether, though he still allowed for the possibility of some kind of God creating the very first life form.

But note the comments of Professor L. R. Croft, lecturer in biological sciences at the University of Salford, in England:

Darwin was well aware that a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life was of crucial importance to his theory. Undoubtedly he recognized that this was the weakest link in his theory. On the other hand, his early opponents, rather than accept defeat, found that there was a position whereby they might compromise with evolution. . . . The Genesis account of creation could be believed by interpreting the days to be eons of time. Darwin in fact had himself realized that this might be a subtle way of getting acceptance for his theory.29

This was why Darwin allowed for the creation of life at the very end of the first edition of his Origin of Species. He deleted this concession to Christians from later editions, after his theory had received wide acceptance from the leading theologians and scientists of the day. Croft, however, notes that this was only a matter of expedience.

Darwin’s dishonesty is apparent. He had long been an atheist and had inserted the above paragraph to lessen the tumult he knew his book would create. He no more believed in a Creator than he did in a flat earth.30

This same kind of descent — from strict creationism to progressive creationism to theistic evolutionism to atheistic evolutionism — has been the experience of countless others since Darwin. In fact, many of the most vigorous opponents of Christianity today started out as professing biblical creationist Christians, but they traveled the same downhill road of compromise that Darwin did.

We have already mentioned Michael Ruse, for example. Another prominent modern scientist who testifies to a similar experience is Dr. Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University. Professor Wilson is now one of the world’s leading entomologists and is founder and leader of the growing field of “sociobiology.” He is an ardent advocate of neo-Darwinism, in opposition to the evolutionary school of punctuated equilibrium, much like Dr. Ruse. He has written the following remarkable testimony:

As were many persons in Alabama, I was a born-again Christian. When I was fifteen I entered the Southern Baptist Church with great fervor and interest in the fundamentalist religion. I left at seventeen when I got to the University of Alabama and heard about evolutionary theory.31

Wilson is now, like Ruse, known as one of the most intransigent enemies of the Christian faith. Such testimonies could be listed in great numbers, not to mention the host of impressionable college students who have been led into compromise and eventual outright unbelief by evolutionist professors.

And what is true of once-Christian individuals is also true of many once-Christian schools and churches and other organizations. Great universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and many others) were founded as orthodox Christian institutions, and now are essentially schools of atheism. The mainline denominational schools (Baylor, S.M.U., Notre Dame, etc.) may not yet have totally descended into atheism, but they are definitely heading in that fatal direction, having long since abandoned belief in special creation and biblical inerrancy. Even many evangelical schools are today teaching theistic evolution. If one traces out these trends toward apostasy, he will almost always find that they started by questioning and compromising the Genesis record of recent special creation and the worldwide flood.

The same has even been true of many organizations that were founded specifically to oppose evolution and to defend the scientific integrity of Scripture. The venerable Victoria Institute of England, for example, founded in 1865, for many years was a staunch defender of the Christian faith, publishing many articles in defense of strict biblical creationism. It is still in existence today, but for many years now has been dominated by theistic evolutionism. The same is true in this country of the American Scientific Affiliation, founded in 1941. Its original members were strong creationists, but the majority refused to take a positive stand on recent creation and the worldwide flood. For many years the A.S.A. has also been dominated by theistic evolutionists.

The Religion and Science Association was started in 1935, but lasted only two years before being undermined by the progressive creationists in its membership. Similarly, the Society for the Study of Creation, the Deluge, and Related Sciences maintained a strong testimony for creation and the Flood from 1938 to 1945, when it likewise foundered as a result of the “long-age” creationists trying to usurp control from the “recent” creationists.

Nevertheless, there are two strong creationist associations in this country, both founded in 1963 and both now stronger than ever. These are the Creation Research Society and the Bible Science Association. Profiting from the sad example of the earlier creationist organizations, both the CRS and the BSA established a strong statement of faith required of all its members and publications, affirming commitment to both literal six-day creationism and the global cataclysmic deluge, as well as absolute biblical inerrancy and the deity and substitutionary atonement of Christ as unchangeable articles of faith. These two organizations have remained strong for well over 30 years precisely because of their refusal to compromise! Furthermore, well over a thousand scientists with M.S. or Ph.D. degrees have been members of CRS, contributing to its creationist research and publication activities.

In England, the Evolution Protest movement, founded in 1932, almost died out because of ongoing commitments by many members to either the day-age theory or the gap theory. In recent years, however, it has again become strong, by changing its name to the Creation Science movement and maintaining full commitment to literal creationism and the worldwide flood.

Details concerning these and other organizations are given in Henry M. Morris’s book, History of Modern Creationism.32The lesson to be learned from all these experiences and organizations is that compromise on creationism tends to lead toward either apostasy or oblivion. But a firm commitment to full biblical authority and strict creationism produces fruitful ministries, stability, and spiritual strength.

1 Jacques Monod, “The Secret of Life,” Interview with Laurie John, Australian Broadcasting Co., June 10, 1976.

2 A. J. Mattell, Jr. “Three Cheers for the Creationists,” Free Inquiry, vol. 2 (Spring 1982), p. 17.

3 Michael Ruse, “A Few Last Words — Until the Next Time,” Zygon, vol. 29 (March 1994), p. 79.

4 Michael Ruse, “A Few Last Words — Until the Next Time,” Zygon, vol. 29 (March 1994), p. 78.

5 Ibid., p. 79.

6 David L. Hull, “The God of the Galapagos,” Nature, vol. 352 (August 8, 1992), p. 486.

7 Ibid.

8 Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin and Paley Meet the Invisible Hand,” Natural History (November 1990), p. 12.

9 Charles Darwin, “Autobiography,” reprinted in The Voyage of Charles Darwin, ed. Christopher Rawlings, 1978, New Scientist, vol. 104 (December 1984), p. 75.

10 Michael Ruse, “From Belief to Unbelief — and Halfway Back,” Zygon, vol. 29 (March 1994), p. 31.

11 Ibid., p. 33.

12 William B. Provine, “Progress in Evolution and Meaning in Life,” in Evolutionary Progress, ed., M. H. Nitecki (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 69.

13 Ibid., p. 70.

14 James Rachels, Created from Animals (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 125.

15 Julian Huxley, in Issues of Evolution, ed. Sol Tax (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 45.

16 Mattell, “Three Cheers for the Creationists”, p. 17.

17 Holmes Rolston, III. “Does Nature Need to be Redeemed?” Zygon, vol. 29 (June 1994), p. 205.

18 Ibid. The journal Zygon is devoted to studies of problems at the interface between science and religion.

19 Rolston, “Does Nature Need to be Redeemed?” p. 206.

20 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, (1859), last paragraph.

21 Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth (Paramount, CA: Schroeder Publishing, 1985), p. 47.

22 Hugh Ross, Creation and Time (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 1994), p. 62–63.

23 Stephen Jay Gould, “The Power of this View of Life,” Natural History (June 1994), p. 6.

24 David Hull, “God of the Galapagos,” p. 486.

25 Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin and Paley Meet the Invisible Hand,” Natural History (November 1990), p. 14.

26 Irving Stone, “The Death of Darwin,” chap. 22, in Darwin Up to Date, ed. Jeremy Cherfas, (London: New Scientist Guide, IPC Magazines, Ltd., 1982), p. 69. Stone is author of the best-selling biography of Darwin entitled: The Origin: A Biographical Novel of Charles Darwin.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., p. 69–70. Although there is certainly no firm evidence of Darwin’s reputed conversion, there are some possible intimations. See L. R. Croft, The Life and Death of Charles Darwin (Lancashire, England: Elmwood Books, 1989), also James Moore, The Darwin Legend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1994).

29 L. R. Croft, How Life Began (Durham, England: Evangelical Press, 1988), p. 20.

30 Ibid., p. 20. Croft has been a diligent researcher into the life and death of Charles Darwin, examining his papers and interviewing the inhabitants of his home community at great length. See also his book The Life and Death of Charles Darwin.

31 E. O. Wilson, “Toward a Humanistic Biology,” The Humanist (September/October 1982), p. 40.

32 Henry M. Morris, History of Modern Creationism (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1993), second edition.