Is Natural Selection “the Devil’s Device”?

We recently received this email from a gentleman who had a question about a comment one of our speakers made during a television interview. The speaker in question, Dr. Tommy Mitchell, responds, following the inquiry, below.

The other day on one of the Christian cable programs I was listening to one of the doctors speaking who is coming on board with AIG at the present time. A pastor was asking him questions on creation.

Your representative brought up natural selection and he somewhat explained that it is so. My thought on this is like your thought on 7 day creation. Why do christians have to believe in “Natural?” Mother nature as some scientists would like to call things that happen without explanation, say nature does these things thereby eliminating Psalms 139 which clearly states that God was in your mother’s womb writing the DNA code and building the body, mind and soul as was planned before the foundations of the world ever were. Natural selection in my opinion is the Devil’s device of showing God doesn’t care about every piece of creation or operation is concerned. What do you think about explaining more in detail that natural selection is of God?

–F. A.

The other day on one of the Christian cable programs I was listening to one of the doctors speaking who is coming on board with AIG at the present time. A pastor was asking him questions on creation.

[The reader is apparently referring to an August 2006 television interview on WTLJ–TV in Michigan. This program has been rebroadcast on several occasions.]

First of all, thank you for taking time to view the program. I pray that it was informative and edifying.

Your representative brought up natural selection and he somewhat explained that it is so. My thought on this is like your thought on 7 day creation.

This topic was indeed discussed during the interview. As I recall the pastor who conducted the interview made a statement suggesting that a type of “evolution” does occur. At that point I tried to clarify what the terms being discussed really meant. The pastor was trying to indicate that animals obviously change, and he used the term evolution to define this process. My reply was that animals do change, but they do not change into different kinds of animals, which is what evolution is. Therefore, this process of change is not evolution. The process he was describing is natural selection.

Natural selection is merely the sorting and selection of genetic information that is already present in an organism. Ed Blyth, a creationist, first described this process about 25 years before Darwin and showed how it preserved creatures in the post-Fall world. This sorting process is generally the result of environmental pressures; for example, long-haired dogs survive better in cold environments than short-haired dogs. Sorting and selection of genetic information also result from isolation and inbreeding of small groups. This sort of selection is mimicked by the selective breeding of domestic animals.

As organisms within a kind breed together, there is ultimately a loss of genetic information. For example, long-haired dogs continually bred together will lose the ability to produce offspring with short hair.

Natural selection is not evolution. Nonetheless evolutionists try to use it as one of the mechanisms that evolution supposedly uses. Evolution requires that organisms change into new types of organisms by accumulating information-gaining mutations (in this way less complex organisms become more complex, e.g., so-called molecules-to-man evolution). In other words, when mutations offering a survival benefit occur, those organisms with the mutation survive and reproduce. According to evolution, when enough of these mutations have occurred, a whole new kind of organism is produced.

However, new kinds of organisms would require new genetic information. Observations of mutations simply do not show the billions of information-gains that evolution requires. Mutations do not provide the information to make new kinds of animals. Even though some of the variation we see in dogs today are the result of mutations, the dog genome still does not contain cat-making information.

There is no known mechanism in nature whereby a mutation will add new information to the genome. Even though a mutation may occasionally produce a survival benefit in certain situations, such as the improved survival of sickle-cell carriers in malaria-infested regions, it ultimately leads to a loss of information in the genome.

God completed His work of creation in six literal days and rested on the seventh. He placed a remarkable amount of information in the genome of animals, plants, and humans which has led to great variety among these organisms today. However, in no instance do we see one organism changing into another.

Why do christians have to believe in “Natural?” Mother nature as some scientists would like to call things that happen without explanation, say nature does these things thereby eliminating Psalms 139 which clearly states that God was in your mother’s womb writing the DNA code and building the body, mind and soul as was planned before the foundations of the world ever were.

God is both the God of the natural and supernatural world. Naturalists try to remove God from the creative process. But God made the natural world and has it abide by natural laws that He created. So even the natural is God’s.

Natural as defined here is merely a way to describe what is actually seen in our world. The word is not meant to describe “Mother Nature.” Natural selection is a real phenomenon occurring in God’s creation. He created the animals “after their kind.”

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:24–25).

With regard to your Psalm 139 reference, I would agree that God did know us before the foundation of the world. In His majesty He knows everything, past, present, and future. I would suggest, however, that God was not literally in the womb, “writing the DNA code,” as you put it. If that be the case, then is God directly “penning” birth defects due to faults in the DNA? No, these defects are the result of copying errors and mutations in the genome (which are the result of the Fall, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain” (Romans 8:22)).

Whereas Genesis was written as historical narrative, the Psalms are poetical books and are meant to be interpreted as such. I suggest you reevaluate this passage in the light of the context and style of the Psalms. Bodie Hodge has a very well written article on this subject.

Natural selection in my opinion is the Devil’s device of showing God doesn’t care about every piece of creation or operation is concerned. What do you think about explaining more in detail that natural selection is of God?

I understand your concern here, but we need to remember that we are in a sin-cursed world. Things aren’t sustained in a perfect state any longer. Without natural selection, animals, plants, and so on would have died off quickly after the curse. But due to the enormous variability in their genome, organisms have been able to adapt to changing, cursed environments; they have been able to change within their respective kinds to survive. So, really, natural selection is a blessing in that things don’t go extinct so quickly in a sin-cursed world.

If God is indeed the Creator, then He is the Author of the laws of the universe.

And if God is indeed the Creator, then He is the Author of the laws of the universe. He created the physical laws we observe in our world. Through scientific observation, we have been able to understand the scientific principles by which our world operates. These principles apply to chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology. The principles of genetics are readily observable and explain much about the way God designed the world to function.

Admittedly, had Adam never sinned and caused the whole creation to groan under a Curse, environmental pressures leading to natural selection would never have occurred. Survival and death would not be part of our vocabulary. However, due to the sorting of genetic material that occurs due to the normal reproductive process, the tremendous variety God placed in the genomes of all living organisms would still be evident.

God is aware of every sparrow that falls, yet He does not stop every sparrow from falling. He lets the natural processes that He designed operate in this cursed world for now. Yet he also reminds us in Romans 8:21 that someday the whole of creation shall be “delivered from the bondage of corruption.”

The existence of natural selection does not diminish God’s role in our world—;far from it. God’s creation is merely operating under the laws and principles that He Himself governs. In fact, when I think of natural selection, I am awestruck by the marvelous God that we serve! He placed into each organism the enormous complexity of genetic information required to produce the variety of creatures we see today.

As Carolus Linnaeus, the inventor of our modern biological classification system, once said, “Let us not set aside God’s works, but guided by them, let us revere the Master!”

I hope this helps clarify a bit. God bless you as you consider this further. There is much more information available on our website regarding this issue.