EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



This attempt at concordism is doomed to frustration. Just as 

 the first chapter of Genesis does not approach the problem of 

 the origins of the universe from a background of astronomy 

 and geology, so the second chapter does not approach the 

 problem of human origins from a background of scientific 

 evolution. The first man's body, which could have been 

 created by God from nothing or could have been formed from 

 the dust of the earth, could also have been prepared throughout 

 millions of years by a long, slow process of evolution. God 

 could have directed such a process until the day, appointed in 

 His eternal wisdom, when a spiritual soul which makes man 

 what he is would be bestowed on a body thus made ready 

 for it by secondary causes. The fact is, however, that Genesis 

 tells us, not how man was created, but what he is by creation. 

 The real doctrinal content is found in the truths about man's 

 nature and his relationship with God and the world. The 

 literary form of the narrative is a dramatization of these 

 truths. 



The verse adduced above in favor of evolution has also 

 been used against the theory. We are told that "man became 

 a living being." Hence we may reason that before God 

 breathed forth His life-giving breath, the recipient of that 

 breath was not alive; but it would have been alive in the 

 supposition that God infused a human soul into the body of 

 an animal. To tell the truth, all that we need to conclude is 

 that the divine breath imparted something which animals lack. 

 The exegete cannot decide from this text whether the material 

 used by God to fashion the first man's body Vv'as living or 

 lifeless, organic or inorganic. The only inference he can draw 

 is that the substance marked out to be the body of Adam was 

 not a human body until a rational soul animated it. Whatever 

 it may have been before, it became a man's body when it 

 received a man's soul. 



All endeavors either to commend or to repudiate evolution 

 from the Bible come to nothing. The author of Genesis never 

 raises the problem of the exact manner in which the human 

 body was formed, and he certainly had no knowledge of 

 scientific evolution. He stresses the fact that God exercised 

 some special action in the creation of the first representatives 

 of mankind and that they have a nature and a destiny which 



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