Serious creationism question?

Question

I have a serious creationism vs. evolution question. I've only seen one partial answer to this on the Yahoo questions site.
I have no argument with the belief that God Himself designed human beings - let's accept that as a given, for this question.
My question is: why couldn't God have used evolution as the tool to achieve this result?
The only answer I've seen to that is the time - according to Genesis, God created humans in less than a week, instead of billions of years.
Is the Genesis timetable indeed the reason evolution is decried? I'd appreciate responses from some thoughtful, devout, believers.

Answer 1

My question is why would God use evolution to create life? Why would there be absolutely no mention of it in the Bible?

Answer 2

The belief that God somehow used evolution to create human beings after providing the intial spark is a position that is gaining in popularity even among Evangelicals and Catholics. Recently, the Pope issued a statement agreeing with this assertion.

There are some problems with this theory. The first of which you have already stated.

1. The Genesis account states that the world was created in 6 literal days. Notice the language, "and the evening and the morning was the first day". The day starts with the dark part first then the morning follows, sunset to sunset. Thus, the reason that the Jewish day starts and ends at sunset. The Sabbath Day was created at the end of the week to be a memorial of creation and the creator. Evoluton strikes directly at this fourth commandment of the Decalogue.

Exodus 20:8-11 states that, "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.... for in six days the Lord God created the earth and sea and all that in them is." God then rested on the Sabbath day, the seventh which is now Saturday.

Satan is pleased that the first day of the week has replaced the Sabbath day as the day of rest and worship, for the Sabbath was meant to be a memorial of creation and of the Creator. Satan wants man to think that they came about by chance, just dumb luck. Every other time measurement has a astronomical reason. A day is the time for the earth to spin on it's axis. A month is the time it takes for the moon to orbit the earth. A year is the time it takes for the earth to orbit the sun. Only the week is without a reason, except for creation.

Satan is happy if he can tamper with the ten commandments because he knows that they reveal the character of God. God is love. The first four speak of our love for and duty to God. The last six speak to our love for and our duty to our fellow man. Satan would have us believe that God is an angry, stern, vengeful God. The ten commandments state that God is love. Any attempt to overthrow the government of God must start with disregarding or changing the ten commandments. These commandments can not be changed. If they could, Jesus would not have had to come and die for our sins, for "sin is transgression of the law".

2. Evolution is based on the premise of survival of the fittest. Not exactly in line with the philosophy of Christ the the "meek would inherit the earth". Christians believe that the "wages of sin is death". Sin brought about death. Prior to sin everything was perfect and there was no death. The earth that was created was "good" according to Genesis. It did not say it was a work in progress or a fixer-upper. If evolution was used in creation, each organism would have to evolve outlive the preceding organism to develop into a human being. This is a very difficult concept to swallow for a creationist who believes that it was the sin of man (Adam and Eve) that brought about death. Prior to sin there was no death thus evolution, which is based on death could not have been used.

3. The Bible teaches that "man is fearfully and wonderfully made..... in the image of God". This view is hardly compatable with evolution which states that we came from pond scum.

4. Evolution states that man is evolving, getting better. Christianity states that man was made perfect but fell and is getting progressively more corrupt, in need of a Redeemer. Evolution sees no such need, only more time to evolve into perfection.

There are many more reasons, but that is a good place to start if you are seriously seeking.

Answer 3

I firmly believe that God created the universe.

I firmly believe that Evolution has occurred and is currently occurring.

I firmly believe that Genesis is not meant to be read strictly as a science textbook or history book. Genesis has other purposes in mind. First Genesis is told in a poetic fashion. But more importantly then the historicity or the artistic of Genesis is the theological point. The Genesis creation account has a theological point to be made. The two major points about God that we take from the creation account is that He is creator and that He is King.

Now the question comes up, If creation might not have happened in six literal days, then why is the creation account told in such a fashion?

There is no question that the "days" in Genesis refer to literal 24 hour days. Yet to grow in our understanding, we need to ask why?

I firmly believe that the 7 day format of creation is in Genesis because it is both culturally and artistically relevant.

Therefore, it is NOT necessary to stick to the "timetable" of Genesis.

If you have any question about ANY of the points I made above you may email me. This goes for anyone who read this. Thanks.

***UDPATE***
Though I do believe in an Old Earth, I do believe God created man intently. Though I believe much of the species that we have today are a result of Evolution. The question regarding evolution is not, does it happen? But to what extent did Evolution play in creating the plethora of species we have today?

This is the theory part of Evolution.

Answer 4

I have to say that this is the first time I have seen this asked though I have answered this before.

It has always been my understanding that the term day is relevent only to usa as humans as we understand time at the present.
To assume that God is incapable of creating the world in the blink of an eye is as obsurd as assuming that he is not bound by the same laws of the universe as we are.
Currently we understand only a few of the physical laws of the universe and I would argue that those we do undedrstand we do so only partially.
If we take the information we have gathered about evolution and say it is "law" than we can assume two things. First that our knowledge of it is at best incomplete and second that God would inturn have to abide by the law he created.

God asks nothing of us that he to will not do or follow. It is that simple. If evolution is a law it stands to reason that he too must follow it. Understanding of course that our knowledge is imperfect.

Answer 5

OK James , I can answer this question with a question. Why would an omnipotent God use evolution when he can speak it into existence? Answer : He would not because It makes no sense whatsoever. Also seeing how Darwin's theory is so absolutely a joke these days, it really blows the idea out of the water. I mean punctuated equilibrium? I mean in the beginning dirt? I mean no plausible theory of how the first living cell miraculously came from dirt?. I mean the best explanation they have is that space aliens planted life on earth and then it evolved. I mean no ,zero, zip ,nada transitional fossils have ever been found. So the real question is why would God use a lie to create the earth. Evolution is a lie and a whopper of big lie. No God would never use the lie of evolution . God spoke the universe into existence , and yes he did it in 6, 24 hour days.

Answer 6

Evolution could not have taken place I did a Youtube video on it an you are welcome to it part one of a on going project. See DNA will not let evolution take place because DNA will spot the mutation then repair it. An When the repair mechanism is damaged an the DNA is changed. It would need another person with the vary Same DNA mutation or he could not mate an have kids. Its all in the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2RH_vgs1ak Remember there are many vids about this that I have made.

Answer 7

The fact is, none of us know. The bible informs us that a day is as a thousand years to God, which means there is no way to translate into the human understanding, how long anything actually takes to happen. There is no time outside this world.

The one who wrote Genesis, translated the understanding of the time into human understanding, the best way he could and with the knowledge of that day.

The fact is, nobody knows how long it took the earth to be created.

That's also why Christians come against that big bank theory. Because it's ony a theory and being taught in our schools as though it were fact. It is not. And in fact, nobody, not even Darwin knew or knows.

Why is it not enough just to know that there is no possible human way for us to know these things?

Answer 8

Christianity presumes that god is specifically concerned with us, humans. In fact our entire universe was created for us, to give us a chance to believe in god.

But,

The earth is 4.5 billion years old, Humans, if the entire history of the earth was condensed into a 24 hour day. Would show up on the last second

Why would an all powerful being, who's intention was to create humans choose this way to create them?

Failed mutations, Survival of the Fittest, Selection by environemental factors, mass extinctions, ice ages, millions upon millions of species, 300,000 species of beetles,

for Billions of years

to end up with Us?

Answer 9

Let's start by understanding that God with a capital G is always the Christian version, since that practice began with bishop Ulfilas in the 300s.

Starting from that premise, Genesis 1:24 rules out macro evolution, so one cannot believe in both God and evolution without contradiction. Remember, this is because of Genesis, since Evolutionary Science makes no claim that bears on the existence of a deity in general.

Answer 10

For this concept, i admit that me too gets confused about this theories of creationism vs. evolution. This theories doubted me since. If GOD created all living and none-living things on earth and the universe then who created him and his foster father.