Can a Faithful Christian Believe in Evolution?

I was excited when I found out that The Story community voted for this question because, as you probably know, our church’s mission is to inspire non-religious people to follow Jesus. One of the most common issues that non-religious people have with Christianity is this idea (I would call it a myth) that Christians are anti-science. When well-meaning Christians nonchalantly say something like, “I don’t believe in evolution” – which I hear believers say quite often – we risk perpetuating that myth.

What makes this issue so tricky is that the word “evolution” is too vague. When we say evolution, are we referring to the phenomenon in which a certain species adapts and evolves over time? Or are we talking about the theory that human beings evolved from other species of primates?

Making that distinction with precision is critical to the conversations we’re having. No one can honestly deny that organisms adapt and change over time under different circumstances and environmental pressures. This form of evolution is often called micro-evolution, and it’s perfectly in-step with the Bible, which says that, when God made the first two human beings,

That’s exactly what Adam and Eve did, and across many thousands of years, people living in different environments and circumstances have adapted – or evolved – in all kinds of fascinating ways.

   

People that lived along the equator in Africa developed darker skin tones, which helped defend their bodies against the intense radiation of the scorching Saharan sun.

Nordic people, meanwhile, living in areas with less exposure to the sun adapted over time by developing lighter skin that allowed their bodies to absorb what little sunlight. This adaptation made it possible for their bodies to more efficiently process Vitamin D.

Bajau people survived for millennia as aquatic nomads, living off the ocean in southeast Asia. For thousands of years they spent more than five hours a day fully submerged on their underwater hunting expeditions. A recent study found that Bajau peoples’ spleens are fifty percent larger than average, an adaptation that allows them to hold their breath for periods of time once thought to be impossible.

And people living high in the Himalayan mountains of Tibet developed a genetic variation that allows them to live with much lower hemoglobin levels than other humans, helping them thrive at altitudes that most people simply can’t tolerate.

The takeaway here is that God didn’t make all the different ethnicities and skin colors and spleen sizes all at once. Instead, He made two human beings and told them to be fruitful, and Adam and Eve did what lovers do. And across thousands of years and countless generations, God created this beautiful and diverse tapestry of humankind by granting us the ability to adapt to the conditions around us and to pass along unique traits that facilitate human flourishing.

Micro-evolution obviously happens in species over time, and that’s not a problem for Christians – or for the Bible. In fact, when we observe these diverse adaptations and differences among human beings across the world, it should fill us with an even deeper appreciation for the wonder and majesty of God.

With that being said, I suspect that, when you voted for this question, most of you weren’t thinking about the spleen sizes or hemoglobin levels. I suspect you were thinking,

“Can someone who believes that human beings evolved from other species go to heaven?” 

Biblically speaking, the short answer to this question is almost certainly yes. There will be people in Heaven who believed all sorts of things during their lives on earth. Here’s why:

Notice how there’s no mention here of having all the right beliefs beyond simple faith in Jesus. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that there will be people in heaven who believed and did all kinds of things during their time on earth. Some people who had racist beliefs beliefs during their life on earth will be in heaven, as will some who were killers and thieves (we know this because of Jesus’ interaction with the thief on the cross beside him).

There will be drivers in heaven. There will be members of every political party in heaven. There will be people in heaven who clipped their toenails on airplanes. So of course there will be people in Heaven who, during their time on earth, believed that human beings evolved from other species, because Jesus never said, “Whoever believes in Me and fully rejects the works of Charles Darwin should not perish but have eternal life.”

This is important, because people have developed this nasty habit of adding to the Gospel. Some have said that whoever believes in Him and attends weekly Mass and participates sufficiently in the Sacraments of the Church shall not perish but have eternal life. Others have said that whoever believes in Him and proves it by living a perfectly righteous life or authenticates it by speaking in tongues shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Once we start adding anything beyond faith in Jesus Christ to the list of what’s required for salvation, we’re on very shaky ground. It’s called works-righteousness, and it must be rejected.

What you believe about evolution has no impact on whether you can be saved, but it also must be said that being saved will have an impact on what you believe about a lot of things – including evolution. When you put your faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and mind and begins to clean house, refining your belief system over time in a process the Bible calls Sanctification.

Last week I shared how the Holy Spirit has reshaped my beliefs on sexuality, and I could say the same thing about today’s topic. I used to believe that human beings evolved and descended from lower, less complex species, and I no longer believe that is the case. I didn’t change my mind because I “drank the Kool-Aid” or because I became a Bible-Belt preacher. I changed my thinking because the Holy Spirit pointed me to renowned scientists who are also believers in Jesus Christ, like Dr. James Tour, Dr. Sy Garte, and Dr. Hugh Ross, among others, who showed me how many holes there are in macro-evolutionary theory.

I realized that the reason I accepted the macro-evolutionary narrative was because I believed that science and faith are irreconcilable enemies.

If that is true, then people of faith face two choices when it comes to science: we either have to reject basically everything science says, or we have to “wave the white flag” and accept what science says in spite of our faith.

One of the Enemy’s greatest achievements over the last two hundred years has been convincing people that science and faith are diametrically opposed when the truth is that:

Good faith has no problem with science because we believe God made the world to be studied:

The Bible also makes remarkably accurate claims that align with the modern, scientific understanding of the world, such as:

It’s mostly lost on us today, because we live in a time in which everyone assumes the universe had a beginning. But for most of human history, just about everyone assumed the universe was eternal. The ancient Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and even the Greeks like Aristotle and Plato all believed that the universe had always existed and that “the gods” created order from the preexisting chaos.

Only the Bible – only Genesis – made the ancient claim that the universe had a defined beginning before which time, space, and energy did not exist. It took science a very long time to catch up to the idea that the Bible was right.

Until as recently as the 1960s, broad scientific consensus held that the universe is eternal. When evidence for the “Big Bang” and the origins of the universe became undeniable, many prominent scientists were shocked. Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the most prominent astrophysicists in the 20th Century, famously said:

Eddington wasn’t alone, as there were many secular experts for whom the idea that the universe had a beginning was too theological or religious to be seriously considered. But the scientific evidence was overwhelming that space and time actually began, and the implications of that discovery were devastating for modern secular people because, if the universe had a beginning, logic tells us that it must have had a Beginner.

This realization gave rise to the profound argument from logic for the existence of God:

For these reasons and more, faith has no problem with science. The second half of that claim is just as important as the first: Good science can only be done by faith. In order to conduct proper experiments that yield reliable results, scientists must assume that the Laws of Nature are constant. As CS Lewis said:

Faith is not at war with science; nor is science in conflict with faith.  The real war in our world today is best defined as:

Faithful inquiry includes things like theology, prayer, Bible study, and worship, but it also includes observation, hypotheses, experimentation, and analysis – the building blocks of the Scientific Method. Any and all sincere pursuit of the Truth about the universe and its origins can be described as faithful inquiry.

Naturalistic Materialism, on the other hand, is antithetical to faithful inquiry: Naturalistic Materialism is the belief that the natural world is all that exists. 

This was the worldview of the renowned astrophysicist Carl Sagan who famously declared:

This is something a good scientist should never say. “The Cosmos is all that we can see or study” is a perfectly reasonable, scientific claim, but to take it a step further and declare that “The Cosmos is all that will ever be” is to step outside the world of natural science into the realm of supernatural faith.

This is where some modern scientists have lost their way and become the priests of the new religion of Naturalistic Materialism. Consider these two very similar claims about evolution:

By inserting the word “unguided” here, we depart the realm of physics and enter the world of metaphysics. Unfortunately, most people – and especially most young students in high school and college – aren’t paying close enough attention to see how massive the implications of this tiny insertion truly are.

If the process of evolution is “unguided,” then so are we, as the products of the process. If the universe – and life within it – is truly random, then so is humanity. If the cosmos is “indifferent,” as Richard Dawkins and others have suggested, then so is God – if God exists at all.

Ironically, at the same time that they reject the possibility of all things supernatural or miraculous, Naturalistic Materialists demand to be allowed one miracle… the miracle of the beginning. That’s just bad science, and it’s done in bad faith.

The difference between good science and bad is the same as the difference between good faith and bad. For faith to be “good,” we have to be willing to acknowledge that there are things about the universe that we simply do not know. Sometimes Christians have a habit of wanting to answer all questions at all times – and we end up sounding foolish to people who need Jesus the most.

When it comes to questions people ask about God and science and what’s true, sometimes the most important three words we can say are: I DON’T KNOW.

There are things we know, and things we don’t know. We can be honest about that.

Things We Don’t Know

1. How God made the universe
2. Why evil exists
3. Why innocent people suffer
4. Who will go to Heaven or Hell
5. How God made human beings

Things We Know

1. God made the universe
2. Evil exists and it is not good
3. Jesus suffered to end all suffering
4. God will do what is right
5. God made us in His image, on purpose, to know/love us and to be known/loved by us

The great theoretical physicist and outspoken Christian, John Polkinghorne, put it like this:

Only God can tell you whether you are loved. And He’s already shown you that He loves you more than life itself. No matter what you believe about the topic of evolution, there’s a place for you in the Church because:

So you can bring Him all your questions and doubts. You can bring Him all your feelings and your secret thoughts. He will never be threatened by whatever is on your mind.

Don’t let what you don’t know keep you from surrendering to what God has already made known: you are not an accident, you are not a machine, you are not cosmic dust with delusions of meaning. You are loved. You are made in the image of God. And as far as God is concerned, you are worth the price He paid on the cross.