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The doctrine of Darwinian evolution is taught throughout the world today. It proposes that life originated spontaneously from inanimate matter and that all living things evolved from an original single-celled creature.

The point of this lesson is that a Bible believer must reject evolution because the Bible and evolution are diametrically opposed.

Some professing Christians try to hold to evolution and the Bible at the same time by interpreting the early chapters of Genesis as poetical or allegorical. But this is an impossible position, as we will see in our first point:

1. The early chapters of Genesis are literal history.

a. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are written as literal history, not as poetry. “There are 64 geographical terms, 88 personal names, 48 generic names and at least 21 identifiable cultural items (such as gold, bdellium, onyx, brass, iron, gopher wood, bitumen, mortar brick, stone, harp, pipe, cities, towers) in those opening chapters. The significance of this list may be seen by comparing it, for example, with ‘the paucity of references in the Koran. The single tenth chapter of Genesis has five times more geographical data of importance than the whole of the Koran.’ Every one of these items presents us with the possibility of establishing the reliability of our author. The content runs head on into a description of the real world rather than recounting events belonging to another world or level of reality” (Walter Kaiser, Jr., “The Literary Form of Genesis 1-11,” New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. by J. Barton Payne, 1970, p. 59).
b. Genesis is cited as history by Jesus. In Luke 17:26-32, for example, Jesus mentions Noah, the Ark, the Flood, Lot, the destruction of Sodom by fire, and Lot’s wife. Elsewhere Jesus mentions the Creation (Mk. 13:19), Adam and Eve (Mat. 19:4-6; Mk. 10:6-7), Cain and Abel (Mat. 23:35; Lk. 11:50-51), and Abraham (John 8:39-40). Christ always treats Genesis as history.

c. Genesis 1-11 is cited as history by seven of the eight New Testament writers (all but James); altogether the first eleven chapters of Genesis are quoted from or referred to 100 times. Genesis is always treated as history in the New Testament.

d. Genesis 1-3 forms the historical foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(1) Jesus’ genealogy is traced from Adam (Luke 3:23-38).

(2) Adam is compared to Christ (Romans 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:45). It is obvious that the apostle Paul considered Adam an historical figure and Genesis as literal history.

(3) The gospel is required because of the Fall of the human race in Adam (Romans 5:12). If the Fall is not real, the gospel is meaningless.

2. The teaching of Genesis cannot be reconciled with the teaching of evolution.

a. Genesis says God created the world and everything in it in six days as opposed to millions or billions of years. The days of creation in Genesis 1 were regular 24-hour days, days with an evening and a morning (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). This is repeated in Exodus 20:10-11.

b. Genesis says everything was made to reproduce after its kind. The statement “after their kind” is found nine times in Genesis chapter one (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25). This is precisely what we observe in the world. Dogs reproduce dogs, spiders reproduce spiders, birds reproduce birds, and peanuts reproduce peanuts. Animals can interbreed and “evolve” within kinds (e.g., various kinds of dogs can be interbred to produce different kinds of dogs), but a dog cannot interbreed with a cat. This is what the Bible teaches and this is what we can observe everywhere in nature, but evolution denies that everything always reproduces after its own kind. It teaches that the fish evolved into the amphibian, and the amphibian into the reptile, and the reptile into the bird, etc.

c. Genesis says the first man was created directly by God and was not the product of gradual evolution from the ape kingdom. The Bible says Adam was the first man (1 Cor. 15:45). And Eve is the mother of all men (Gen. 3:20).

d. Genesis says man is made in God’s image and is different from the animals (Gen. 1:27). Evolution says man is an evolved animal.

e. Genesis says the world was created perfect, then fell under sin and has been deteriorating ever since. This is consistent with everything we can observe. Everything is proceeding from order to disorder. Everything is deteriorating, running down. This is exactly what the Second Law of Thermodynamics describes, as even secular evolutionists admit. Isaac Asimov was an evolutionist, but his definition of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as follows, actually refutes evolution and proves the Bible: “The universe is constantly getting more disorderly! Viewed that way, we can see the Second Law all about us. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself and that is what the Second Law is all about” (Asimov, “In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Break Even,” Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 10). How contrary this is to the theory of evolution, which says that things have gradually evolved from non-life to life, from chaos to order.

f. Genesis says everything was designed to fulfill God’s purposes. Wherever we look in nature, from the microscopic to the astronomic, we see design, which is contrary to the theory of evolution that says the world is the product of blind naturalistic processes. Study the cell, the eye, the ear, the leaf, the flying wing, the atom, light, sound, water--everywhere you find purpose and design. Michael Denton observes, “It is the sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look, to whatever depth we look, we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the idea of chance” (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1983, p. 342). Even a “simple” microscopic one-celled bacterium (R. Coli) contains DNA information units equivalent to 100 million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and all of that information works together in perfect harmony and is self-replicating! Purpose and design is what one would expect if God created the world as the Genesis record says He did, but if evolution were true, we would find chaos and haphazardness.

g. Genesis indicates that the earth’s history is only about 6,000 years old, whereas evolution claims that it is billions of years.

h. Genesis says man had the ability to use language from the beginning, so that he might communicate with God. But according to evolution, language evolved from animal grunts and squeals. It is important to understand that even modern archaeology says that writing began about 6,000 years ago, which fits the Bible’s record exactly (Joseph Naveh, Origins of the Alphabets: Introduction to Archaeology, Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Publishing House, p. 6).

i. Genesis says man had the ability to create an intelligent civilization from the very beginning. Adam’s children raised cattle, created musical instruments, and worked in brass and iron (Gen. 4:20-22). Evolution, on the other hand, claims that man’s civilization began with a “stone age” in which “cave men” lived like animals.