Theistic Evolution and the Future of Humans

When I was a teenager, I read the book Has Man a Future? by the famous humanistic philosopher, atheist and evolutionist Lord Bertrand Russell of Liverpool. According to this eminent philosopher, if human beings do not kill each other through wars, they will probably die of starvation or disease. In other words, the future of humans can be summed up in one word—EXTINCTION!

The future of humans can be summed up in one word—EXTINCTION!

The first geology lecture I heard at Aberystwyth University was given by the Head of Department, Professor Alan Wood. In his lecture, he speculated on the future of the human species. He explained how, according to evolution, humans had simply evolved and that we were not the end-product of the process, for evolution will continue, and humans will either become extinct (there’s that thought again!) or evolve into some other species that will definitely not be human. Prof. Wood also speculated about what type of creature a further 200 million years of evolution would produce. He wondered if the new creature would be interested in geology and if he would look for the fossils of humans that lived in the twentieth century!

Theistic Evolution—A Compromised View

Many theistic evolutionists (such as Prof. Wood) compromise their interpretation of Genesis and believe in millions of years in which evolution has supposedly occurred, with God controlling the processes. They also believe that God still controls these processes and that evolution is still proceeding. These teachings are contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture that God has completed His creation (Genesis 2:1–2).

If you accept the idea of evolution, you have to accept the evolutionary dogma that the human species is just part of the evolution of life, nothing special and certainly not the end-product.

Yet the Bible teaches that human beings are special. God created the first human pair in His image and likeness. Adam and Eve were created by God—Adam out of the dust of the ground and Eve from Adam’s side. God did not cause them to evolve from some ape-like creature. We are not related to animals. There is not a hint of evolution in what the Bible teaches about our origins.

Who Was Adam?

“Who was Adam?” is the question theistic evolutionists cannot adequately answer. Theistic evolutionists have many ideas regarding Adam’s identity and the nature of the Fall. Perhaps the most accepted evolutionary interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis goes something like this: Adam and his wife Eve were people who had evolved from ape-like ancestors; God drew near to them and breathed His Spirit into them, making them “spiritual beings” with a so-called “God knowledge”; and the Fall is supposed to have occurred when this human pair disobeyed God’s revelation to them about being obedient to Him. (What happened to the other people at the time and who had a similar evolutionary ancestry is not mentioned.)

Such an interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis actually dismisses the clear teachings of Scripture, including the creation of Adam and Eve, the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the absence of death until Adam sinned.

Evolutionists’ Gloomy Predictions

So how do theistic evolutionists view the future? To be consistent, they have to rely on an evolutionary scenario to determine this. Most evolutionary scientists agree that one day the universe will reach what they call a “heat death,” although it is, in reality, a cold death, for the temperature of the universe will be just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. They teach that this will happen when all the available energy to do work will have been used up, and then nothing will happen—the universe will just “be.”

According to this evolutionary scenario, the time period for the universe to reach this state is almost unimaginable. It is thought that it will take about a thousand billion years for all the stars to use up their fuel and fizzle out. By this line of thinking, there will still be occasional flashes of light in the dark universe as very large stars collapse in on themselves to form black holes. For the next 10¹²² years (that’s a 10 with 122 zeros after it!) this socalled Hawking radiation will be the only thing happening in the universe. Then, when all the black holes have evaporated, there will be darkness for 10²⁶ years, during which time the universe will simply “be” and nothing will happen.

Contrast that gloomy prediction with what the Bible teaches regarding the future. Rather than a cold death, the Bible teaches that the universe will experience a hot destruction followed by a recreation: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). This will be followed by God creating “a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

The Christians’ Glorious Future

Jesus Christ’s death on Calvary's Cross and His victory over death three days later is the key to this new heaven and new earth. It cannot be over-emphasized that Heaven is only for those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ—those who have repented of their sins and trusted in His substitutionary death. The Bible teaches that when Christians rise from the dead, they will still be human beings, but their bodies will be raised in “incorruption, glory and power” (1 Corinthians 15:42). We are not going to evolve into any other species; we are going to be raised from the dead with different bodies—bodies that will never die.