In part 1 of this series, I argued that the theory of evolution contradicts the very nature of the God of the Bible. If evolution is true, then God cannot exist in the way that the Scriptures teach. Even so, there are some Christian evolutionists who believe that young-earth creationism is a stumbling block to scientists. They believe that a young-earth is very offensive to scientists and that God wants this stumbling block removed. Instead, we should only concentrate on the salvation of Jesus Christ.^[1] Will these non-Christian evolutionists accept Christ if he used evolution? Let us look at what some of the most well-known evolutionists and God-haters have to say.

What evolutionists say about God and Evolution

Atheist Charles Templeton says:

The grim and inescapable reality is that all life is predicted on death. Every carnivorous creature must kill and devour another creature. It has no option. How could a loving God create such horrors? … Surely it would not be beyond the competence of an omniscient [all-knowing] deity to create an animal world that could be sustained and perpetuated without suffering and death.^[2]

Note what Templeton is saying here. He says that an all-knowing God (like the God of the Bible) would never use evolution. This goes right along with what I wrote about in part 1. What about what other evolutionists think? The evolutionary philosopher, David Hull, notes the implications that evolution has on Christianity:

The problem that biological evolution poses for natural theologians [Christians who believe that God used evolution] is the sort of God that a Darwinian version of evolution implies. . . . The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain and horror. . . . Whatever the God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like, he is not the Protestant God of waste not, want not. He is also not a loving God who cares about his productions. He is not even the awful God portrayed in the book of Job. The God of the Galápagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.^[3]

Jacques Monod, the Nobel laureate and French biologist, says:

[Natural] selection is the blindest and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more and more complex and refined organisms…The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethics revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, one where the weak is protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God, more or less, set up in order to have evolution.^[4]

What Hull and Monod are saying is of paramount importance to the creation-evolution debate. A god who would use evolution is not the God that the Bible teaches about. A god who would use evolution is diabolical and wasteful. Christianity cannot be integrated with Darwin’s theory and still have a loving God. In fact, Monod even goes as far to say that if God used evolution then our society is more ethical than what God is.

Arthur Falk, a secular humanist, says, “So natural selection seems smart to those who see only the surviving products, but as a design process it is idiotic. And the raw brutality of the process is offensive.”^[5]

Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most famous atheist in the world today, says:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands  of animals are eaten alive, many others are running for their lives whimpering with fear, others are slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must also be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.^[6]

Historian Ron Numbers summarizes the issue at hand:

For creationists, history is based on the Bible and the belief that God created the world 6,000-10,000 years ago. … We humans were perfect because we were created in the image of God. And then there was the fall. Death appears and the whole account becomes one of deterioration and degeneration. So we then have Jesus in the New Testament, who promises redemption. Evolution completely flips that. With evolution you don’t start out with anything perfect, you start out with primitive little wiggly things, which evolve into apes and, finally, humans. There’s no perfect state from which to fall. This makes the whole plan of salvation silly because there never was a fall. What you have then is a theory of progress from single-celled animals to humans and a very, very different take on history, and not just human history.^[7]

You cannot word the differences between the loving God of the Bible and evolution any better than that. I gave the quotes in this article to show the reader why many scientists simply refuse to believe in Jesus Christ as their savior: if God used evolution then he is idiotic and/or evil. This is one of the main reasons why so many scientists are not Christians. The view that scientists will accept Jesus, who is the God of love, if God is taught to be the mastermind of evolution, is a horrible argument. Many scientists actually lose faith in Jesus because it contradicts the teachings of the gospel. Evolution, and not young-earth creationism, is the stumbling block for scientists believing in Jesus.

What do you think? Is evolution one of the main reasons for skeptical scientists? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.