A Biblical Case against Theistic Evolution

by Wayne Grudem, John D. Currid (Contributor), Guy Prentiss Waters (Contributor)

Leading Bible Scholars Explore Why the Theory of Theistic Evolution Conflicts with Christian Doctrine Even Christians strongly debate Scripture’s account of creation, with some declaring that major events in the book of Genesis―from the origin of Adam and Eve to God’s curse on the world―were purely symbolic. Several respected scholars endorse this theory, but is it consistent with the Bible’s teaching? In  A Biblical Case against Theistic Evolution , condensed and adapted from  Theistic Evolution , Wayne Grudem and other leading scholars challenge the belief that Genesis is mostly symbolic, rather than a true, historical narrative. Grudem examines 12 specific events in Genesis 1–3 and explains why acknowledging their historicity is critical to understanding the rest of Scripture. He also emphasizes several foundational doctrines, including God’s ongoing involvement in creation, the beginnings of mankind, and the origin of sin and death, to show readers how the theory of theistic evolution undermines essential truths throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Genres: Religion, Theology, Evolution, Science, Christian

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 19, 2022

About the author

Wayne Grudem (PhD, University of Cambridge; DD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is research professor of theology and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary, having previously taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Grudem earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, as well as an MDiv from Westminster Seminary. He is the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, a cofounder and past president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a member of the Translation Oversight Committee for the English Standard Version of the Bible, the general editor of the ESV Study Bible, and has published over 20 books, including Systematic Theology, Evangelical Feminism, Politics—According to the Bible, and Business for the Glory of God.

Reviews

[Dr. David Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first exposure to theistic evolution came almost forty years ago in high school. The notion of theistic evolution was especially troubling to me at that time because the person who espoused it was my science teacher who was a professing Christian. One wonders, “Why would a perfect God use an imperfect process to create a perfect cosmos?”

Dr. Wayne Grudem has assembled a top-class team of scholars to address the aforementioned matter in his book, A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution. Each matter is explored with biblical precision. In the end, theistic evolution is roundly defeated. Grudem’s closing chapter proves to be the most helpful chapter in the book as he demonstrates how theistic evolution undermines twelve creation events and several Christian doctrines.

A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution is a timely response to the rising tide of this troubling movement.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review.

[Brittany Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evolution has been and continues to be a controversial topic. Much of the discussion ends up being people talking past each other because they don’t first identify what they even mean by evolution.

Wayne Grudem and his contributors have done an excellent job writing this book in a clear and descriptive way. They define their terms fairly stating the positions of both sides and where conclusions are derived from.

The premise of this work is to lay out the arguments as to why theistic evolution (which is different than just ‘evolution’) is incompatible with what the Bible teaches. It focuses on how we interpret the first few chapters of Genesis.

It is not about how old the earth is or if it was a literal six day creation. (Though I kind of wanted to go there) It is not even about whether people who believe in some form of evolution are ‘true Christians.’

It is an argument to compel readers to view Genesis as an historical account, not figurative, allegorical, or mythical.

It is an argument that exposes the dangers of misinterpreting Genesis and how it undermines several crucial doctrines of Scripture.

To that end, this book is very compelling.

Today evolution is taught and referred to as if it is a collection of proven facts. It is not, yet anyone who questions it is labeled as someone who rejects science.

As Christians, we know that God is pro-science. The Bible does not lie and it is not at odds with science.

So what are we to think about evolution or theistic evolution?


What is Theistic Evolution?

For clarity purposes: the theistic evolution (or evolutionary creation) that is presented in this book is based on the beliefs of the most prominent advocates for it. Obviously not all adherents will all agree on everything that ‘title’ may mean.

The definition they use for theistic evolution is this:

“God created matter and after that did not guide or intervene or act directly to cause any empirically detectable change in the natural behavior of matter until all living things had evolved by purely natural processes.”

Theistic evolution is a version of evolution in which Christians still believe in a Creator God and believe in the Bible. But adherents believe that God created matter with certain properties (that he sustained) that engaged in an evolutionary process (without his further intervention) that produced the world, humans, and creatures we have today.

Grudem shares that according to Theistic Evolution:

1. Adam and Eve were not the first human beings (and perhaps they never even existed).
2. Adam and Eve were born of human parents.
3. God did not act directly or specially to create Adam out of dust from the ground.
4. God did not directly create Eve from a rib taken from Adam’s side.
5. Adam and Eve were never sinless human beings.
6. Adam and Eve did not commit the first human sins, for human beings were doing morally evil things long before Adam and Eve.
7. Human death did not begin as a result of Adam’s sin, for human beings existed long before Adam and Eve and they were always subject to death.
8. Not all human beings have descended from Adam and Eve, for there were thousands of other human beings on Earth at the time that God chose two of them as Adam and Eve.
9. God did not directly act in the natural world to create different “kinds” of fish, birds, and land animals.
10. God did not “rest” from his work of creation or stop any special creative activity after plants, animals, and human beings appeared on the earth.
11. God never created an originally “very good” natural world in the sense of a safe environment that was free of thorns and thistles and similar harmful things.
12. After Adam and Eve sinned, God did not place any curse on the world that changed the workings of the natural world and made it more hostile to mankind.


Before reading this book I had already decided what I believed about evolution. Some parts of these arguments were not new to me, however some of the points the authors bring up were ones I had not thought about before.

It seems simple to just say- “I believe in God and in evolution. I believe God used evolution to create the world.”

But if you say that… do you know all of the things that that would imply about how God works, how sin and redemption works, how that impacts your view of humanity?

If you will allow yourself to consider the questions Grudem asks and the Scripture they use to support their claims, you may be surprised how flimsy the basis for theistic evolution really is.


Brief Synopsis

There is a lot of information in this book so I won’t share it all with you. But here are the main things the book covers:

Chapter 1: What is Theistic Evolution?

Chapter 2: Theistic Evolution Is Incompatible with the Teachings of the Old Testament
- Were the original authors of Genesis influenced by other ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythological writings?
- What does the original language and structuring tell us?
- What is the genre of Genesis 1? [They propose “exalted prose narrative”]
- Do the rest of the Old Testament authors view Genesis as historical?

Chapter 3: Theistic Evolution Is Incompatible with the Teachings of the New Testament
- How do we interpret genealogies?
- How is Jesus the second Adam and what does that mean for us?
- What does Jesus say about Genesis?

Chapter 4: Theistic Evolution Is Incompatible with Historical Christian Doctrine
- What have historical church creeds stated about the doctrines of creation and sin?

Additional Note: B. B. Warfield Did Not Endorse Theistic Evolution as It Is Understood Today
- I’m guessing theologian Warfield is a significant figure in terms of the evolutionary discussion. I was not aware of that so this section wasn’t as influential for me as the others, but apparently knowing what Warfield thinks of this topic is worth analyzing and so they have considered what he has written about it.

Chapter 5: Theistic Evolution Undermines Twelve Creation Events and Several Crucial Christian Doctrines
- Grudem goes through all twelve criteria listed above and explains how they are not compatible with Scripture. (Even if you don’t want to go through the entire book, just reading this one chapter is pretty informative)


Sidenote: They mentioned theistic evolutionists discussing the diverse genetic record as evidence of human origins being from thousands of ancestors not just Adam and Eve. They didn’t really counter this point in the book. I was curious and did a tiny bit of extra research. Looking at the population’s genetic record, it is not impossible for all of humanity to be derived from two progenitors. If Adam and Eve were created with diverse genes, it would explain the diverse genetic record we can see today. This is not a problem after all.


Why Does It Matter?

You may read through these things and think- why does it matter? Can’t we just agree to disagree?

And Grudem points out that what you believe about evolution or creation is not a salvation issue.

However, just as he explains in his book Evangelical Feminism, our beliefs are formed by how we view Scripture. If we interpret Bible passages certain ways, it undermines the truthfulness and inerrancy of Scripture which is a very significant issue.

“Once the truthfulness of Scripture is lost, the entire Christian faith begins to unravel… The question is whether the Bible is truthful in all that it affirms, on whatever topic it wishes to speak about.”

“Proponents of theistic evolution are claiming, in essence, that there are whole areas of human knowledge about which they will not allow the Bible to speak with authority. They will allow the Bible to speak to us about salvation, but not about the origin of all living things on the earth, the origin of human beings, the origin of moral evil in the human race, the origin of human death, the origin of natural evil in the world, the perfection of the natural world as God originally created it, and even the nature of Christ’s own personal involvement as the Creator of “all things . . . in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16). These are massive areas of human knowledge, affecting our outlook on our entire lives. Yet theistic evolution has decreed that the Bible cannot authoritatively speak to us about these areas of human knowledge. Those topics are the exclusive domain of modern naturalistic science, off-limits for God to speak to us about.”


Just a few of the problems that we run into if we hold a belief in theistic evolution are:

- If Adam and Eve were just part of thousands of humans and God just chose them to have fellowship with, then where does that leave the rest of the human or humanesque beings? Did they not have souls? Are we to believe God waited around for evolution to work enough to create people he could ‘work with’ and then he just ignored the rest that didn’t ‘evolve’ enough? Does that sound like God? Is there racial (or otherwise) inferiority between descendants from non-Adam/Eve ancestors? All of humanity coming from Adam and Eve speaks to the unity of humanity. Equality. Unity in both our sin but also in Christ being the second Adam. Through one man came sin and death, through one Man comes forgiveness and redemption. (Rm 5) We lose the original unity of humanity with theistic evolution.

- If there was an evolutionary process then there was a lot of violence and death from the origins of the world. Why would God create a world (or the beginnings of a world) with violence and death and declare it ‘very good’? Are we to believe that God saw a world with hurricanes and tornadoes and man-eating sharks and creatures killing each other and thought- what a very good world this is! Or did the first sin bring about a curse on the world? Didn’t eating from the tree bring death? How does theistic evolutionists convincingly explain Scripture stating that death entered the world by one man?

- Why would we believe that God would make things right ‘in the end’ if he didn’t even make them right in the beginning? Does theistic evolution provide us with evidence of a good God and hope of a world ‘restored’ —or I guess to them— finally created perfectly?

- When we look at the complexity of the human body or things found in nature, the fine-tuning of the universe, are we amazed and say- “Wow! Look at what the matter that God created formed into! How amazing that matter is that it could turn into this! That matter is so wise!” Or do we say, “Wow! Look at what God made. Look how wise and loving God is!”? According to theistic evolution, God only created the matter and sustained the properties, but had no direct influence. How does this portray God?

- Scripture tells us that looking at nature provides us with knowledge of the existence of God that is so clear that man is without excuse. If we look at nature and think of the random mutations of evolution, are we reveling in the clear evidence of God? (Rm 1:20) Even if God was part of every mutation, the idea of evolution as the source would obscure the ‘clear’ and obvious knowledge of God. This is incompatible with what Paul tells us.

- There are so many biblical passages affirming the historicity of the entire book of Genesis. Are we to think that Paul and Jesus were wrong?


Maybe I’m Wrong

Maybe I’m wrong to reject theistic evolution.

But I keep coming back to this:

I am at the very least left with this conclusion (and I land here too when thinking about predestination and free will): If I’m going to be wrong about something, I’d rather be wrong by giving God too much credit and too much power rather than the alternative.

I’d rather be wrong and be praising God for making every single thing, for creating the world and all that is in it, for forming Adam from the very dust of the ground, for creating a world that was indeed very good without violence or death, than be wrong while believing that God was hands-off in most of creation and just let evolution ‘do it’s thing' no matter what sin and violence accompanied it.

I’d rather be wrong while believing the Bible to be the infallible Word of God as it proclaims for itself and trusting every truth it tells me than be wrong while believing that God’s Word is tainted by sinful beings and therefore not trustworthy to tell us the truth.

“Theistic evolution undermines the glory given to God for his unfathomable wisdom in the creation of all living things, because in theistic evolution no divine intelligence or wisdom beyond the properties present in inanimate matter is required for matter to evolve into all forms of life. In addition, in theistic evolution God does not wisely create various kinds of animals on his first attempt, but clumsily, by his providence, brings about millions of failed mutations in each creature before he finds a beneficial change.”


Conclusion

I think there are a lot of people that hear ‘evolution’ and run the opposite direction- “Let’s not go there. Too controversial. Too abstract. Pointless.” I’ve thought that too. Why rock the boat? Let’s just focus on Jesus and the cross and not worry about the origins of the Earth.

And granted, it’s not where our hope dwells.

But it is not an insignificant topic. As stated before, what is at stake is what you believe about God and what you believe about His Word. These are questions about truth, sin, morality, redemption, and more. And those are no small things.


Can we definitively prove either way that evolution did or did not happen? No. We cannot.

But this book is an academic and compelling explanation that if it doesn’t convince you to abandon theistic evolution, will at least force you to think more about why you believe what you believe and how that influences how you view God and the Bible.

It is not an easy read but it’s an important read.

I cannot do the book justice in a short review. The arguments, evidence, Scriptures, and resources discussed in its pages are far more compelling as they present it than what I’ve detailed here.

I hope my review does not make up your mind for you on what you will believe or reject but will convince you that it’s worth looking into and putting in the work.


If I have not yet been clear, I recommend this book to all people!


**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

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[Selah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good overview and more detailed explanation of the critiques against theistic evolution. It was very informative and helpful, I did have to slog through it a bit, there's a LOT of information. Definitely need to reread at some point and take more time with it.

[George Herndon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading I wondered how those two worldviews could be reconciled. Upon completion I was affirmed they can’t be. Helpful book on a relevant issue.

[Nate Norberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an interesting read. I’ll confess, I was expecting it to read a bit more like Ken Ham’s writing. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how respectful the authors were toward Christians who accept the evolutionary creation or theistic evolution viewpoint. However, while this book was engaging, I don’t imagine it will be very convincing to those who accept evolution. The authors bring up a few good points which I'd like to follow up on, but they spend most of the book on arguments that I thought were relatively weak.

God’s Involvement in Creation

The most surprising criticism that was repeatedly brought up was that theistic evolution denies God’s design or involvement in creation past its beginning. Most evolutionary creationists I’ve talked to would happily affirm God’s design in nature. Many have also made the counterpoint that our understanding of how embryos develop doesn’t negate the wonderful truth in Psalm 139:13-14 where the psalmist claims “you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made.”

Genesis 1-3 and Inerrancy

A common concern of the authors is the reliability of Scripture. (I share this concern as well). Many of the authors seem to imply that when other authors of Scripture quote parts of Genesis 1-3 it requires that these accounts need to be understood as a literalistic account of how God created the universe. However, most of these references make just as much sense if we take the first chapters of Genesis as a figurative account of God creating the world.

Grudem also seems to insist on a literalistic reading of Genesis 1-3 in his discussions of biblical inerrancy. We would both agree that the Bible is “true in all it affirms”. However, he seems to ignore some very valid reasons why someone might consider the opening chapters of Scripture not to be affirming the specifics of how God created the world. If the point being affirmed is theological and not scientific, we don’t need to be troubled by a figurative reading of Genesis 1-2 any more than we’d be troubled by God saying in Job that He laid the foundations of the earth or referenced storehouses of snow and hail.

Adam and Eve

I think the most interesting part of the discussion of the plausibility of evolutionary creation involves discussions around Adam and Eve. There are several books referenced that I’ll want to read after this. However, I thought their discussion was missing a couple of things. My first objection was that, despite insisting that all humans need to be descended genetically from Adam, they never explained why this was the case. (Or if they did I missed it). One or two of the authors referenced 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul contrasts bearing the images of Adam and Christ. However, it’s left as a mystery why we’d need genetic descent to bear the image of Adam, but we can bear the image of Christ without being physically descended from Him.

The other thing that I was disappointed the authors didn’t address was the homo divinus theory of Adam and Eve that was coined by John Stott. This theory has the advantage of creating a distinction between “human” as a physical description (referring to homo sapiens) and “human” as a description of being in the image of God (which Stott coins homo divinus). In this view, God calls Adam and Eve as representatives of this new humanity (who ultimately commit the original sin). Gregg R. Allison quotes this view, but none of the authors bring it to bear in the discussion. This is unfortunate because it seems like a very interesting way to harmonize a lot of the supposed conflict around this issue. With Stott’s view, we can accept the scientific evidence for common descent, as well as the special creation of Adam, the federal headship of Adam, original sin resulting in human death, and all the nations tracing their origins back to Adam. I would have loved to see this addressed because it deals away about half of the 12 objections that the authors have with evolution.

B.B. Warfield

I thought the chapter on Warfield’s views on evolution was interesting, but I didn’t think the authors adequately explained why his views merited a whole chapter. I’m assuming the significance was that he was a famous champion for the authority of Scripture but was still open to accepting evolution. If that is the case, the fact that he may have rejected evolution for lack of evidence is sort of beside the point. The more significant point is that he didn’t consider it an attack on the authority of Scripture in the first place.

Conclusion

I thought this book was an interesting read, even if the discussion was missing some pretty crucial elements. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the discussion around the Bible and origins of the world and it’s pointed me to several other books to read next.

[Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly had a blast reading this. I found it packed with information to the brim, yet still being consumable without getting droopy eyed. The first session I had with this book I remember blanking and having to go to sleep because I completely lost my rhythm in reading; thereby the arguments presented got a little foggy in my brain (it was very late). That blame is on me, not the authors.

The reason why I bought this book was because at one point I began considering theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism; as BioLogos prefers) as being a valid view on the beginning chapters of Genesis. Some time passed without me giving the theory much thought, then I began being introduced to arguments contrary to theistic evolution, and one hit me like a ton of bricks: if Adam and Eve were not the first living beings, nor were the first humans, how do you reconcile the fact that for this theory to be true, for millions of years animals and neolithic beings would have to have been subject to death and pain, as well death would have to be a part of the natural order of things, not a disease introduced by the sin of Adam?

Then while reading The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, he argued from a theistic evolutionary view on creation and the fall of man, which officially spoke to me that "Hey Roman, you need to figure out what you believe, with scripture." Therefore I picked up A Biblical Case against Theistic Evolution of my shelve the very instant I finished the chapter I was on in Lewis' book.

I came to a slight conclusion (due to the question I brought up prior about death) that the theory of theistic evolution does not comply with scripture a little before reading this book, and now all the more do I stand firmer and more grounded in that conclusion. I believe theistic evolution is completely incompatible with scripture. Most importantly, fundamentally it undermines the inerrancy of scripture, in reading a historical-narrative with all the literary elements of a historical narrative as allegory, or poetic prose.

The problem in theistic evolution is that it puts scripture against science, not science against scripture, as well casts aside 2,000 years of church history, and claims that statements made by Jesus and Paul which spoke of Adam as a real man, were in error. The Word of God's interpretation of the Word of God is proper.

A wonderful book, and very engaging; I extremely enjoyed Grudem's final chapter, "Theistic Evolution Undermines Creation Events and Crucial Doctrines" (177-236) and John D. Currid's chapter, "Theistic Evolution Is Incompatible with the Teachings of the Old Testament" (29-72).

10/10.

[Kirby Key · Rating 3 out of 5]

strong case for the inconsistency of theistic evolutionary claims with the witness of Scripture.

I found a couple of the contributors (primarily Grudem) to be overly simplistic and unwilling to fairly consider the best arguments for a biblical theistic evolution

I did appreciate that the authors were careful not to fight on the hill of young earth creationism. it was clear that they sought to avoid association with the Ken Ham camp.

as always, I respect those who aim to be thoroughly biblical in their approach, even if their hermeneutic tends more rigid than mine

[Jared Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A damning critique of Theistic Evolution that argues its incompatibility with Christianity. Issues include denial of biblical inerrancy, denial of original sin, denial of God’s creation (He only sustains the world), denial of the atonement (to deny historic Adam is deny salvation by the historic Christ) and more. Grudem and others do a masterful job of exposing this pernicious error in the Church.

[Yajaira Marmolejo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clear and easy to read book that helps understand what Theistic Evolution is and how it does not conform to Scripture. However, I was hoping to read more about how we should or could reconcile scientific findings with Scripture.

[Evan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book with biblically valuable insights. 4 stars because I can see myself referring to it in the future but probably will not read it again.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every person has a worldview. Go anywhere on the planet and all people have a worldview. Worldviews clash. Worldviews will push one to take on a particular view of things such as science, theories, and yes, of the Word of God. So let me show my hand when it comes to science and the issue of creation: My worldview is such that I take the Word of God literally when it says that God created everything in six, literal 24-hour days. Because of that, when I approach reading Scripture, science is NOT the starting point for me. Scripture is. When it comes to the discussion about age of the earth, the theory of evolution, etc., etc., I don't start with science and demand that Scripture somehow bows the knee to science. I start with Scripture and simply demand that science bows the knee to Scripture. I get it. That isn't a popular view. I get it. The person who doesn't know Christ or who doesn't believe in God, I would expect that person to embrace the theory of science as authoritative. That is a consistency in their lives. But what baffles me is those who believe in Theistic Evolution and bow their knee to science and work to force Scripture to submit to science. Thus, I was baffled as I read through this excellent book, "A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution." I wasn't baffled by the writers of the book, but more so, I was just baffled by the arguments of those who were being addressed in the book. Frankly, the arguments of the Theistic Evolutionist (as presented in the book) are simply examples of people who believe science and are bound and determined to force Scripture to bow to science. In doing so, some of their arguments are nonsensical.

In this book, Wayne Grudem has brought together several authors who address various aspects of the Theistic Evolution belief system. Grudem begins the book by giving a definition of Theistic Evolution. He quotes from Theistic Evolutionists to help the reader understand specifically what is being talked about when one addresses Theistic Evolution. The second chapter is writen by John D. Currid, and he demonstrates how Theistic Evolution is incompatible with the teachings of the Old Testament. Guy Prentiss Waters, in chapter 3, shows how Theistic Evolution is incompatible with the teachings of the New Testament. These two chapters are very insightful. In chapter 4, Gregg R. Allison helps the reader understand how Theistic Evolution is incompatible with Historical Christian Doctrine. These three chapters combine to bolster a very solid argument against the promoters of Theistic Evolution. One of the arguments often put foward by the Theistic Evolutionist to attempt to bolster their points is that there is this belief that the theologian and influential B.B. Warfield believed in Theistic Evolution. Thus, chapter 5, written by Fred G. Zaspel, shows how that argument developed and why that argument fails since Warfield did not embrace Theistic Evolution. Finally, Grudem wraps up this volume by showing how Theistic Evolution undermines twelve creation events and several crucial Christian doctrines.

On my desk and also in my backpack are Bibles. They are the most precious possessions I have. Every other possession pales in value to God's Word. My occupation is given to studying and using this book (the Bible) to teach, train, shepherd, counsel, etc. No book is more important to my worldview than the Bible. No book is more important to my life, direction in my life, joy in my life, etc. When it comes to "A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution," this book covers an issue that is of absolutely critical importance. In fact, it is so important that if the Theistic Evolutionist is correct, then I might as well reach over and push my most precious possession into the trash can for it is no longer trustworthy. Nothing within the pages of holy writ can be trusted if the Theistic Evolutionist is correct. If that view is correct, we might as well eat, drink and be merry, for everything we as Christians bank our eternal destiny upon, actually is suspect. That is why I believe Grudem and company had to address this critical issue and they do a marvelous job in doing so.

I highly recommend this book to you.

[Richard Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book convincingly articulates a biblical case against theistic evolution.