Did the Apostle Paul Speak Against Evolution?

Paul’s Encounter with the Epicureans

We don’t have to wonder if Paul would have argued for creation and against evolution—he did in his encounter with the Epicureans!

If we jump to the book of Acts and consider Paul’s missionary journeys, sermons, and epistles, we see that he met a great number of people and surely encountered a great number of beliefs. Taking a closer look at Scripture, consider:

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18)

In the greater context, we find Paul forced into a debate with Epicureans and Stoics. Because they disagreed with Paul, they take him to Mars Hill (the Areopagus) to espouse and defend his views in front of the whole assembly of philosophers. Acts 17:21 tells us that “the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” So Paul realized that this was a unique opportunity to present the gospel and masterfully began his defense, which has gone on to become the basis for creation evangelism.1

What Did the Epicureans Believe?

The Epicureans were the evolutionists of the day.

Most readers skim past the Epicureans with the basic understanding that this group obviously did not hold Christian views. Though this is true, it is only the half of it. The Epicureans were the evolutionists of the day. They typically held a belief derived from Epicurus that there were no gods that intervened in the world. They did not believe in the typical Greek “gods” but viewed them as merely popular and hyperbolized fictional accounts in scrolls and books of ancient heroes. They viewed a god or gods as being material idols simply made from matter.

The Roman writer Cicero records a debate between an Epicurean (Gaius Velleius) and a Stoic (Quintus Lucilius Balbus) in which Velleius lays down the Epicurean beliefs on the nature of the gods. The quotation below is the concluding part of the debate:

We for our part deem happiness to consist in tranquility of mind and entire exemption from all duties. For he who taught us all the rest has also taught us that the world was made by nature, without needing an artificer to construct it, and that the act of creation, which according to you [Stoics] cannot be performed without divine skill, is so easy, that nature will create, is creating and has created worlds without number. You on the contrary cannot see how nature can achieve all this without the aid of some intelligence, and so, like the tragic poets, being unable to bring the plot of your drama to a dénouement, you have recourse to a god;⁠ whose intervention you assuredly would not require if you would but contemplate the measureless and boundless extent of space that stretches in every direction, into which when the mind projects and propels itself, it journeys onward far and wide without ever sighting any margin or ultimate point where it can stop.

Well then, in this immensity of length and breadth and height there flits an infinite quantity of atoms innumerable, which though separated by void yet cohere together, and taking hold each of another form unions wherefrom are created those shapes and forms of things which you think cannot be created without the aid of bellows and anvils, and so have saddled us with an eternal master, whom day and night we are to fear; for who would not fear a prying busybody of a god, who foresees and thinks of and notices all things, and deems that everything is his concern? An outcome of this theology was first of all your doctrine of Necessity or Fate, heimarmenē, as you termed it, the theory that every event is the result of an eternal truth and an unbroken sequence of causation. But what value can be assigned to a philosophy which thinks that everything happens by fate? It is a belief for old women, and ignorant old women at that. And next follows your doctrine of mantikē, or Divination, which would so steep us in superstition, if we consented to listen to you, that we should be the devotees of soothsayers, augurs, oracle-mongers, seers and interpreters of dreams. But Epicurus has set us free from superstitious terrors and delivered us out of captivity, so that we have no fear of beings who, we know, create no trouble for themselves and seek to cause none to others, while we worship with pious reverence the transcendent majesty of nature.2

The Epicureans further believed in at least long ages of history, if not an eternal past, and that atoms, the basic component of all matter, gave rise to life. Then that life gave rise to higher life such as mankind. But no God or gods were involved.

Sound familiar? It should, because in its basic form, the Epicurean beliefs mimic the evolutionary worldview of today. Of course, Epicureanism had some differences from the modern views of evolution (such as Lamarckian evolution, traditional Darwinian evolution, and neo-Darwinian evolution), but this is likely the first time an evolutionary worldview held any prominence with a group of people (from around 300 BC).3

The Famous Epicurean Mantra

The materialistic Epicureans were known for their argument against God (and alleged gods) using the problem of evil:

God [or the gods] either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak—and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful—which is equally foreign to god’s nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?4

Even today, evolutionists try to use this same basic claim without realizing that Christ himself addressed it:

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” (Matthew 13:24–30)

The existence of evil is no surprise to Bible-believing Christians, since God explains the origin of evil in Genesis 3 and its final demise at the end of Revelation 20. God will destroy evil just as he has said in numerous places, but it will happen at the time appointed by God (harvest), not on the timing or desires of humanity—as the Epicureans tried to force upon God (i.e., if God doesn’t do it now, then he can’t exist).5 God is not subject to man, but man to God.

In the same manner, God could have created everything in one second, but he selected six days for the benefit and pattern of our workweek (Exodus 20:11). So God has an appointed time for the elimination of evil for the benefit of man.6

Paul’s Response to the Epicureans

You can see why the Epicureans opposed Paul! They didn’t want God to exist, and they did not want him to be the Creator. Rather, they believed that people ultimately came from matter and would return to matter (dust) when they died. They believed that once the body died, there was nothing else. In fact, a common Epicurean epitaph found on many Greek and Roman graves of the time was the Epicurean phrase: “I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care.”7

Paul responded to these claims. In Acts 17:24, Paul defines God as the “God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth.” He refutes the Epicurean ideas that a personal Creator God does not exist and that there is no spiritual realm, countering their materialistic thinking.

Paul further says that God “does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:24–25). Paul’s response makes sense because we know God is spirit (John 4:24). He refutes the belief that God is limited to materials that men fashion into idols, which the Greek people had a sort of bipolar disconnect with. The average Greek believed that the Greek gods were real, but that the myths taught about them were not true (or totally allegorical).8 They also believed that artists and smiths could infuse idols with some type of essence of the gods.9 Greek culture often made images of their “gods,” and the Epicureans realized these idols were made of materials, which is why they argued against them. So Paul is distancing the God of the Bible from what the Epicureans were used to arguing against.

Next, Paul says God “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything”(Acts 17:25). Paul explains the true origin of life and refutes that atoms came together to form life of their own accord.

Paul explains the true origin of life and refutes that atoms came together to form life of their own accord.

But notice how Paul actually goes further in a presuppositional argument here. If the Epicureans start with matter, where did the matter come from? Paul reveals that God created it (“everything”). Paul, through the beginning of verse 26, continues to explain that all people come from one person and that person came about as a result of God (“he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth”). This explanation refuted their views of evolution and established God as the special Creator of mankind.

In the rest of verse 29 and into 30, Paul reiterates his devastating critique of their strictly materialistic understanding of God. Paul also points out that mankind is really acting as the ultimate authority by worshipping man-made gods when he says, “We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked.”

Lastly, Paul gives the call to repent and presents the gospel. He mentioned that God confirmed this to all by the resurrection of Jesus.

But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31)

It was at this point that Scripture says, “Some mocked” (Acts 17:32). This would have included the Epicureans, who (like the Sadducees) did not believe in a bodily resurrection. Ironically, Paul had to refute this problematic thinking with some in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 15:12–29).

How Should Christians Deal with Evolutionism Today?

Paul did not compromise his stand on Genesis (alluding to Genesis 1–11), which he used as the foundation for understanding the gospel when he spoke at Mars Hill in front of the Epicureans, Stoics, and others. He boldly proclaimed divine creation, all mankind coming from Adam, and the effects of the dispersion at Babel.

Paul did not compromise his stand on Genesis, which he used as the foundation for understanding the gospel.

He did not encourage them to mix God’s Word with the evolutionary ideas the Epicureans were espousing, but he told them to repent. So if Paul were around today, would he argue against the evolutionists? Well, he certainly did at Mars Hill.

Evolutionists today adhere to a similar religious mythology that Paul argued against in the first century in Acts 17, though it has changed in its mechanisms.10 But evolution is a religion, a historical science fairy tale. It is also a religious origins account borrowed from Epicureanism and by many other humanistic religions (simply because evolution is one of the few religious models that tries to offer an explanation of origins). Evolution fails both theologically and scientifically—it is ultimately a failed system and false religion. While there are many ways to refute evolution, our base response should be the same as Paul’s: Stand firm on Genesis without compromise and call people to repentance.