Coronavirus—Mutation or Evolution?

We know God didn’t design viruses to kill living things (including us), so how could viruses cause so much global suffering and death?

In the beginning, all viruses were very good. Even today, over 95% of earth’s viruses remain beneficial. Before the fall, some of today’s harmful viruses likely provided essential functions to their animal hosts and to Adam and Eve. Other viruses probably maintained bacterial populations. After the fall, some of the good viruses mutated and became bad. Slowly, over millennia, good viruses mutated into bad viruses causing diseases like Ebola virus disease, rabies, AIDS, smallpox, and COVID-19.

Even in this fallen world, God gave mankind the ingenuity to develop cures and methods to mitigate some deadly viruses. And more importantly, he offers us ultimate healing for our soul.

Many sources claim that this coronavirus evolved to infect humans. It’s true that this coronavirus changed to cross from an animal host to humans. But it only mutated—a far cry from evolution. Scientifically, mutations happen when existing genetic information is damaged. The mutations leading to COVID-19 didn’t change this coronavirus into a new kind of virus, as evolution requires.

Though all viruses were originally very good, we now live in a fallen world with death, disease, and suffering. Viruses like the one causing COVID-19 remind us that we’ll all die and then face judgment (Hebrews 9:27). But even in this fallen world, God gave mankind the ingenuity to develop cures and methods to mitigate at least some deadly viruses. And more importantly, he offers us ultimate healing for our souls. Through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, salvation is offered freely and culminates with creation’s redemption—including restoration of viruses to their original perfect state—when God ushers in the new heavens and the new earth.