A teacher who addresses the issue of biblical creation as related to biological evolutional theory must rely completely on God’s Word and His Spirit to speak. The listener, in turn, in order to receive the message, must lean into faith—for if anything can be easily understood, then surely it is not of God. An individual’s response to the teacher’s message is not dependent on the speaker. It is between God and the listener.

Faith begins by believing that God exists and acknowledging that His ways are beyond what our human minds can comprehend. God’s ways are mysterious, and faith accepts that God is constantly working to accomplish His good purposes. The biblical story of Joshua and the people of Israel marching around the city of Jericho once a day for six days, and then, on the seventh day, marching around the city seven times—at God’s instruction—shows that God guides His people step by step (Joshua 6). Because of their faith, the people obeyed God, and God’s mighty hand moved. The wall of Jericho fell, and the city was delivered into the hands of the Israelites.

Convinced!

A young professional friend of mine has just completed a long journey of seeking truth, from which he arrived at faith. This young man had fallen into the pitfall of misunderstanding God’s creation of man. He had accepted the modern biological evolutional theory that man evolved from the ape. Fortunately, this young man—after much searching and praying—came to the conclusion that evolutionary theory could never provide sufficient explanation for the creation of man. Between God and this listener, faith occurred. The young man said, “I have no choice but to confess that only a Creator could make me. And He is Jesus Christ!”

Like all Christians both past and present, this young man was not an eyewitness of the ancient creation of man. Yet he believes and affirms the event as truth. Faith, in fact, convinces all of us of things not seen, as Hebrews 11:1 declares: Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

It is by faith that we are saved, justified, cleansed, and look forward to the Second Coming when Jesus Christ will return to earth in fulfillment of His promises and the prophecies made about Him. By faith, we rely upon Christ and His abundant grace in our lives every day.

God’s Created Order

The definition of evolution is two-fold: “the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth,” as well as “the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.” For example, our immune system utilizes evolution in the production of antibodies to more quickly recognize and attack previously encountered pathogens. But the tremendous complexities of the immune system, the reproductive system, and many other systems of the body are all seemingly impossible to explain by evolution alone. The genetic code which governs the reproductive process in all creatures is extremely complex and is clearly a marvelous reflection of an intelligent creator’s design. Some scientists attribute these complexities to natural selection instead of arriving at the obvious conclusion that an intelligent agent was responsible for them. However, other evolutionary biologists have, in recent years, recognized the absurdity of relying on natural selection alone to accomplish such marvelous feats of creation.

At any rate, the Christian understanding of creation is very different from the secular understanding. In the Christian view, the world is a creation that is absolutely dependent for every instant of its existence on the will and grace of the Creator. Genesis 1 says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Evolution is quite a challenging field to study, and there are no precise answers yet to our questions regarding the evolutionary processes. The principle of Science is that scientific beliefs that are already known must be set on a solid foundation. For those that are still unknown, the answers must be pursued faithfully. Christians should be willing to listen to new ideas and not jump to conclusions or be restricted by any doctrines except the Bible. Both science and history attest to the accuracy of the Bible. Jesus has already fulfilled many prophecies related to the Messiah in the Old Testament. And, in this modern era, we can be certain that the Bible is true and is God’s Word to us! God is speaking! Are we listening?

Besides the Bible, Professor Bingh Tang is also interested in studying and writing about molecular biology and public health statistics. Retired, he and his wife currently serve in their church.