NT Wright’s Terrible Answer to “Help! Science Is Pushing Me Toward Atheism”

The second half of his answer was about praying through our doubts and asking God to speak to us through his Word (which is good advice) but consider the first part of his answer:

Sometimes the family or church we grew up in may have included teaching on all sorts of things – like creation and evolution – which it is helpful to revisit later in life. The trick is to discover which things are non-negotiable and which things aren’t.

Taking evolution, we have to distinguish between ‘biological evolution’, which seems to me a scientifically validated reality, and ‘evolutionism’, which is a way of looking at the world as though God doesn’t exist. Biological evolution needn’t disturb a faith in God as the good and wise creator. Questions such as these, then, need to be thought through without fear.

Dr. Wright’s answer to this person’s doubts about evolution, science, and God is basically, “God used evolution—just don’t look at the world as though God doesn’t exist.” But, as the struggling inquirer who wrote him has probably noticed (hence the struggle!), evolution and the Bible’s account of history are incompatible.

Dr. Wright can say that “biological evolution needn’t disturb a faith in God as the good and wise creator,” but there’s a reason it does for so many people—and that’s because biological evolution destroys the idea of a good and wise Creator.

Evolution is a process that involves millions of years of death, suffering, and disease to turn one kind of creature into another kind. Not only does this flatly contradict Genesis—which has God creating life by the power of his Word and creating everything “according to its kind” so one kind will not turn into another kind—but it also calls into question the character of God.

If God needed millions of years to slowly and painfully perfect his creation and prepare it for human life, then he is an inept, bumbling Creator who just can’t quite get it right! And at the end of creation week, God called all of his creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31). What kind of Creator calls a world filled with death, suffering, and disease “very good”? No, death and suffering are the result of Adam’s sin that broke God’s once “very good” creation.

NT Wright’s answer to this cry for help compromises biblical truth, undermining the very gospel he believes and wants this person to likewise believe.

NT Wright’s answer to this cry for help compromises biblical truth, undermining the very gospel he believes and wants this person to likewise believe. Consider, if Dr. Wright is right and God used evolution, that would put death and disease in creation before sin and therefore death would no longer be the penalty for sin. So why did Jesus need to come and die? As a New Testament scholar, Dr. Wright should know the connection Paul draws between death and Adam’s sin and the last Adam’s (Jesus’) death and the life he brings. Yes, the New Testament treats Genesis as history because it is!

So what answer would I give to this person struggling to believe God’s Word in light of evolutionary ideas? I would urge them to start their thinking with God’s Word. I would point out the difference between historical and observational science, showing that observational science (observable, testable, and repeatable) is not in conflict with God’s Word. Then I would highlight how evolution (historical science—not directly observable, testable, or repeatable) is an interpretation of the evidence based on a particular worldview, but how when we start with the history in God’s Word, we have the right worldview, based on the eyewitness account of history, through which to interpret the evidence. Yes, science confirms the Bible!

Observational science and the Bible are not in conflict. What is in conflict is the evolutionary interpretation of the evidence (historical science—beliefs) and the Bible’s account of history.

Dr. Wright sadly has a low view of Scripture (God’s infallible Word) and a high view of finite man’s fallible word.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.