A listener named Kevin writes in to ask, can we reconcile creation and evolution or are

they contradictory?

Pastor John, what would you say?

I think what I'd say first is that evolution as it is ordinarily mint in our culture, namely

naturalistic evolution, evolution minus God, evolution as an explanation of the origin

of life when God is not there to explain it is incompatible with creation, incompatible

with God, incompatible with Christianity.

And so that's the main form we're dealing with in the world and therefore we ought to

be alert to it, prepare our kids, do encounter it and realize that the reason, main reason

evolution has been pursued and described is because when you leave God out of account,

it seems like what else can it be.

But if you bring God into account, then you might say, oh, well that whole effort to

account for things might not be necessary if there's a God in the universe or above the

universe who brought it into being in other way, so that's the first thing I'd say.

But probably the question or has in mind a kind of evolution that would be coherent with

possibly theism or Christianity.

Can God have been the one who so designed, the intelligent designer behind the process

of billions of years of natural selection?

And the answer is theoretically, yes, but exegetically we've got a problem, I'll just give

my three or four stumbling locks that give me very great pause for affirming evolution

and keep me from going there, keep believing that that's the way it was done.

One is the problem of death, this is probably the biggest one for me.

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