In the video, an audience member who identifies himself as a "scientist and also a Christian" ask this question:
Do you believe in natural selection and evolution? Or do you think it's a disgrace for humans to be created this way?Apparently Mr. Zacharias cannot hear all of the question so the man re-states it:
Natural selection and evolution... Do you think this is the way- it may be the way God created us? Or do you think it's a disgrace for human beings being created this way?Clearly this man is asking what Zacharias thinks of theistic evolution, the idea that God used evolution to create man. What a perfect opportunity for Zacharias and his associate to point the audience to the authority of God's word. Unfortunately the opposite happens. Instead of standing on the authority of the infallible, straightforward record of creation as found in Genesis, Zacharias and his speaking partner inadvertently cast doubt on God's word. I will try to explain what I mean in the following paragraphs.
Zacharias's associate (identified only as "Stewart" on the video) attempts to answer the question first. Sadly, his answer is really no answer at all. He seems to be intentionally evasive in his response. He points out that there is a "range of views" as to how to interpret Genesis: young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution. He then refers to the questioner saying, "In your field there are people who are specialists who deal with the science and they have to go where the science is leading them... so there is a dialogue then between particular interpretations of the Scripture and putting the best of the science together." Speaking for himself and his colleagues he says, "We are persuaded that, obviously, that creation is primary. There is a God, He's a personal God, and that creation as an act of grace is in there." But, as if unwilling to publicly commit to any particular view of Genesis, he tries to remain neutral by making the point that no one was there to observe how God created. Stewart says, "Now that's not, it's not a cop-out. It's just a fact. So we still try to make the best explanation using the data we have from the science and the Scripture and marrying those together." He continues, "I don't see a conflict with these things necessarily- that God creates and God uses process... God speaks into existence, but He also uses process." Then he lists what he calls the "big things", i.e. the non-negotiable tenets of the Christian understanding of creation. They are: "that we know who we are in the terms of the purpose that has been initiated. The processes? We can also endorse some of that.... For us as Christians, the primary issue that we cannot debate and we will not give up on is that God is this creative act (I assume by this he means that God created in some way). The processes we may not fully understand completely, but we dialogue in an ongoing way the tension between Scripture and with science." He closes his answer almost apologetically by saying, "I hope that's not too much of a fudge, but that's a rough way at least that I would come at it."
I want to respond to his answer. First of all, he is accurate when he says that there are a "range of views" as to how Genesis is interpreted today. The problem is that he leaves the audience hanging, as if by simply stating that there are a range of views proves that no one can be sure which view is correct. He gives the impression that the text of Genesis is ambiguous and extremely difficult to understand. This could not be further from the truth. The fact is that a literal six-day creation is the only view that can be arrived at using sound rules of biblical interpretation. It is the only view that is derived from a plain reading of the text. It was the dominate view of the church for the first 1800 years of her history, it was the dominate view of the Jews, and it was the obvious view of Jesus and Paul. All other views either read into Genesis something that is not there, i.e. extremely long days instead of 24 hour days, or they try to reinterpret the plain meaning of words such as the word day. Theistic evolution and old-earth creationism both have come about because of attempts by certain Christians to re-adjust the biblical account of origins to fit with evolution. See my post Old Earth Arguments Make For Bad Hermeneutics. So, while there is a range of views concerning how to understand Genesis, there is only one view that is faithful to the text itself, all other views are not.
A second area that concerns me is found in his closing statement where he refers to a supposed tension between Scripture and science. Is this true? Does believing the Bible somehow put us at odds with science? Do we really have to do mental gymnastics to reconcile the Bible's account of origins with what we find in the scientific investigation of our world? The answer is no. The Bible's account of creation in Genesis fits nicely with everything we observe in our world. We see design, there must be a Designer. We see animals and plants reproducing after their kind. We see male and female. We see marriage in every culture. We observe humans having dominion over creation. Across cultures humans have a sense of morality and a universal desire for justice. We see things wearing out as a result of sin's curse. None of this can be explained by evolution. All of it fits nicely with the Bible's creation account. The tension doesn't exists between the Bible and science, it exists between the Bible's account of origins and man's fallible theories. At this point I would highly recommend that you read the book In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, John Ashton, ed. I have endorsed this book previously in another post. The fifty scientists in this book tell why they believe that evolution is an unscientific and even anti-science theory. Science does not equal evolution.
A third area of concern is that Stewart fails to recognize that scientists must interpret what they observe in nature. He says that "scientists have to go where the science is leading them." This implies that scientists are unbiased observers of the data and they simply let the data speak without bringing any preconceived ideas into their scientific observations. The fact is, all people have presuppositions, even scientists. If you start with the assumption that the earth is billions of years old, then you are going to interpret the data within that grid. If you start with taking Genesis literally, then you are going to interpret the data within that particular grid. The question is, which view does the data lend itself to? I think it lends itself more readily to a recent creation as described in Genesis rather than to billions of years. So do thousands of scientists. When it comes to origins, I agree with Stewart when he said that no one was there to observe creation. Since the creation event is unrepeatable then we are left with interpreting the evidence, i.e. fossils, etc. and making assumptions about the past. While it is true that no human was there in the beginning, the Bible provides an eyewitness account of the creation event. God was there and He plainly tells us how He created, in what order He created, and how long it took Him to create. See my post Did God Use the Big Bang to Create? Stewart acts as though God didn't tell us how He created. It is very frustrating to hear someone who travels the world speaking in defense of Christianity and yet he cannot answer the most fundamental question- How did God create man? The Bible's text is plain, not ambiguous. The only reason that someone would not believe it as literally written is if he is trying to somehow fit billions of years and some form of evolution into Genesis.
So far, we've seen that Stewart has claimed that there are multiple ways of understanding Genesis and that no one is sure which way is the correct one. We have also learned that he has the mistaken view that science contradicts a literal reading of Genesis. Then we discussed how he ignores the fact that all of us have presuppositions, even scientists. Now I will offer a fourth area where he fails in his answer- consistency.
Stewart is not consistent in his logic. He says that the primary thing that is non-debatable and that he says he will not compromise on is the fact that God created, but apparently he doesn't know how God did it. He says that it is most important to believe that God is a personal God and that He created motivated by grace. He wants us to understand that one of the "big things" that is most important is "that we know who we are in the terms of the purpose that has been initiated." Stewart is not being consistent. For instance, How do we know that God is a personal God apart from what we read in the Scripture? Sure, we can tell from nature that there is some kind of creator-god out there, but we have no way of knowing that He is a personal God apart from the Bible. Furthermore, while I think that God's motivation for creating was not grace but for His glory, the point is that we can know nothing about God's motivation for creating unless He tells us in the Scripture. Likewise, how do know what God's purposes are for His creation unless He reveals it to us in the Bible? How is Stewart being inconsistent? It is inconsistent to say on the one hand that we know that God is a personal God by reading the Bible, and that we know what God's motivation was in creating the world by reading the Bible, and that we know what God's purposes are for His creation by reading the Bible, but that we cannot know what method God used to create by reading the Bible. This inconsistency is frankly ridiculous. The Bible that tells us about God's motivation, purposes, and character is the same Bible that tells us how God created everything, including man. The Christian who questions whether God created by evolution or not need only to be pointed to Genesis 2:7 where it plainly says that the Lord formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. There is no room for human evolution here. Case closed.
When Stewart was finished Mr. Zacharias proceeded to give his answer to the man's question. Did he provide a more satisfying answer than Stewart? I am afraid not. He gives some general philosophical arguments for the existence of God and the weaknesses of naturalistic evolution but he doesn't attempt to answer the man's question. In fact, he intentionally avoids it. He says, "We could tell you if we take a literal view of Genesis 1-3, or a figurative view, which is also an important part of your question. I have my views on that. I have my thoughts on that. Stewart has his. Our team has different ultimate perspectives on the details, but the fact of the matter is, we really don't get bogged down on those issues with each other. We get to the point of a first cause." Zacharias goes on to refer to three different men who are scientists and Christians who hold differing views on how to interpret Genesis- none of the three men interpret it literally. In fact, one of the men he references is Hugh Ross, an old-earth creationist. I have previously posted a critique of Hugh Ross and his views on interpretation. For more information about Ross see "Hugh Ross's Hermeneutical Train Wreck". Zacharias says, "All of these men, great in their field, will hold slightly different views of those very three chapters right in the beginning (of Genesis), but they are all committed to the God of the Scriptures and totally submit to His role in their lives."
This is pathetic. The poor man who asked the question suffered through about 10 minutes of evasive muttering and in the end Mr. Zacharias refused to commit himself to an answer. Why? Mr. Zacharias speaks with authority on every other issue that the Bible addresses, why can't he seem to speak with authority about the Bible's account of creation? Zacharias is a Christian apologist. He has a masters degree in theology. He is a well-known, well-respected speaker with great intellect but he can't understand when he reads the first three chapters of the Bible? Why not just answer the man's question? Why be so vague in your speech?
It appears that Zacharias is trying to take the heat off of himself by mentioning three scientists who are "great in their field" who don't take Genesis at face value. He says of these men that they are "all committed to the God of the Scriptures." Of this I have no doubt. I am sure that they love God. But my question is not if they are committed to the God of the Scriptures, but rather, are they committed to the Scriptures of God? Are they willing to take Genesis at face value, in its plain sense, and not try to read into it evolution or millions of years?
It is time to take a stand on God's word. We need not be intimidated by unproven and unscientific theories of men such as evolution, no matter how many scientists endorse them. We need to start with the belief that God's word is true from the beginning. I recommend another previous post Even Isaac Asimov Believed in a Literal Reading of Genesis.
At the beginning of this post I stated that I feel like Mr. Zacharias's answer to the question did more harm than good. How? By giving the impression that the first chapters of the Bible are either contrary to science and cannot be trusted or they are simply too hard to understand. The man who asked the question wondered if evolution degraded human dignity. Absolutely. The Bible's story of creation in Genesis, on the other hand, assures us that man is a special creation of God, the crowning achievement of God's creative work. Man is made in God's image, was given dominion over the rest of creation, and had a special relationship of fellowship with the Creator. Man was blessed by God and called part of God's very good creation. All of this is taught in a literal reading of Genesis. Could God have used evolution to create man? He could have, but did he? No. How do we know? We read how God did it in Genesis.