7.2 Danger No 2: Misrepresentation of the Nature of God

Jesus reveals God to us as our Father in heaven who is absolutely perfect (Matt. 5:48), and the angels proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” (Isa. 6:3). God is omnipotent (Gen. 17:1); He is “the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change” (James 1:17). The first epistle of John mentions three fundamental aspects of God’s nature:

• God is love (1 John 4:16)
• God is light (1 John 1:5)
• God is life (Ps. 36:10; 1 John 1:1–2)

As the Son of God, Jesus is the true God and the everlasting Life (1 John 5:20). Through Him, God made the universe (Heb. 1:2). He is “gentle and humble in heart” (Matt. 11:29), and “in him is no sin” (1 John 3:5). If a God with these characteristics creates something, then His works could only be perfect (Deut. 32:4) and very good (Gen. 1:31).

The Darwinistic principle of “the survival of the fittest” means that the superior organisms will win the battle for survival and the unadapted ones will be weeded out. As a method for creating life-forms, this procedure is totally contrary to the nature of Jesus the Creator.

In evolution, progress is bought by pain and death. Improvement of species took place “over the dead bodies of individuals,” as stated by C.F. von Weizsäcker. Hans Sachsse affirms regretfully and accusingly that one could not escape the conclusion that everything is not as it should be [S1, p. 51]: “The way of ‘development’ entailed an appalling measure of pain and sorrow. What we discern in evolution is not only wonderful, but also gruesome. Death is evolution’s strategy for elevating life.” The biblical testimony concerning God’s nature is distorted when death and ghastliness are presumed to be creative principles. Wolfgang Böhme, a theologian who supports theistic evolution, even goes so far as to say that he regards sin as a harmless evolutionary factor [B5, p. 89–90]:

If development has to march forward, sin is a marginal phenomenon at the edge of the great process of evolution, perhaps even a necessary feature. Nature cannot sin. Can man then be sinful when he is merely a product of nature, a link in the chain of nature’s creatures, taken from the earth to which he must someday return? Teilhard de Chardin expressed the opinion that sin was a necessary factor in evolution, that it was the “risk” and the “shadow” which accompany all creative events. . . . The myth of man’s fall into sin is found in the beginning of the Bible.

This approach is one small step from an arrogant accusation of God:

How can . . . God be exonerated when He created a world filled with suffering of all imaginable kinds—pain and fear and illness? How did evil enter the world when it is God’s creation? . . . all believers must consider the question of how the ailments of the world can be reconciled with God’s omnipotence (H. von Ditfurth [D3, p. 145]).

The anti-biblical consequences of theistic evolution have become clear from the above quotations:

1. a false representation of God and of Christ
2. God is seen as imperfect
3. death and ghastliness are ascribed to the Creator as principles of creation
4. it is assumed that the holy God used sin to create life
5. sin is regarded as a harmless evolutionary factor, causing Jesus Christ’s work of redemption as the only possibility of man’s salvation, to appear (nearly) absurd
6. Adam’s fall into sin is seen as a myth instead of reality, conveying a false impression of death and suffering in this world.