Several newspaper articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung deal with the proposal of the head of education in Hessen, Karin Wolff, to bring the biblical accounts of creation into the biology curriculum. She is obviously being critiqued on every side for her idea, but before Christians rejoice over this allegedly great development, let’s take a closer look at what’s actually being said.

According to the FAZ, the whole point of this proposal is “interdisciplinary exchange of ideas”. Alright, doesn’t sound so bad. However, biblical creation is from the start disqualified from actually being taken seriously. It’s merely meant to stimulate thoughts about the “why” of life, not the “how.” To take this even further, the article points out that it would sharpen students’ minds towards the “unscientific and totally unacceptable illusions of creationists.” Ouch.

Before I start my comments I would like to state my view. I believe macro evolution is wrong and that God created everything in 6 days, like the bible says. That said, let’s go to my first point.
What I believe is totally irrelevant if it’s false. I read several books on the topic and studied the topic at college, so I am familiar with the arguments of evolutionists as well as intelligent design proponents. Before you comment or try to sort out why in the world I just renounced the “greatest theory of everything” in the world, in a manner similar to rejecting the existence of oxygen, please be courteous and at least read up on intelligent design. I don’t like being called ignorant when all I get is a one-sided argument for evolution from someone who hasn’t even heard of the opposing view. I know the claims and arguments of evolutionists, please be so kind as to read up on the claims and arguments for intelligent design.¹

A quick google search will reveal (mostly negative) info on Behe’s irreducibly complex systems, which when looked at through the polemic and sometimes condescending curtain of smoke, have never actually been proven wrong. It’s one thing to say that all these different parts had different functions before evolving into what they are today, and quite another to actually prove it.
Another interesting fact is the stasis of the fossil record. We would expect tons and tons of intermediate forms of species through the record. One particular stretch of the fossil record, called the Cambrian explosion, actually shows tons and tons of species just appear and later disappear, without any sign of intermediate forms. There is not much change in fossils, not as much as we would expect if evolution were true. Darwin got away with saying that it will show in the time, but now, over a century later, the picture looks worse for evolution than before. In response to the undeniable stasis of the fossil record came Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium, which says that new species developed on the side, as a fringe group, so it became never really visible in the fossils. This theory is rejected by many orthodox neo-Darwinists because it sounds too much like saltation, which, as even Richard Dawkins admits, could explain even the biblical account of creation and thus doesn’t explain evolution at all. As Johnson puts it, “saltation just means that a new form appeared out of nowhere and we haven’t the faintest idea how.”²

So we have to at least realize that evolution has its problems and that ID, which is absolutely areligious by the way and doesn’t deal with theology at all, nor is it specific to Christianity, does have scientific merit. Again I encourage to pick up some books on the topic; they have more space and knowledge to go into much more detail than I could here.

To get back to the article, another thing that greatly disturbed me is the view of the President of the Lutheran (“Evangelisch”) Church in Hessen and Nassau, Peter Steinacker, who says the biblical view on creation is scientifically obsolete, even though it still worthy of discussion because of its metaphysical and philosophical statements. I have a really big problem with that statement! Steinackers views on biblical inerrancy and infallibility are very weak. If one doesn’t believe as true the things that it says, why believe it? Why become overseer of a church? Why be a Christian?? This is just beyond me. God claims that the bible is His very word, all of it, without exception. That is either right or wrong. If it’s right, we ought to go and take it all the way, if it is wrong, we shouldn’t bother reading it, learning about it, teaching it, talking about it, thinking about it.

Another of Wolff’s statements was the view that is more commonly known as theistic evolution, which means God used evolution as His means of creating. She said that there are “surprising commonalities” between evolution and what the bible says. The article didn’t mention those, I am not sure if she did, but it sounds very much like theistic evolution. Which, quite bluntly, is absolute nonsense, for these reasons:

1. Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created. These first 4 words of the bible refute atheism, because there is a God, evolution, because it was created and didn’t evolve, materialism, because the universe did not always exist, polytheism, for there is only one God, and pantheism, for God is apart from and independent of creation.

2. Genesis 1:27 – We were created in God’s image. If we evolved, where did we get His image from? We are not in any way special or different from animals if we all evolved from the same common ancestor.

3. Genesis 1:26 – We were designed for ruling. We are not part of the (animal) world, we are above it. God made us to rule over it, which is not the case if we had evolved.

4. Natural Selection. Get it? Natural. Not Supernatural. By its very mechanism, evolution excludes any kind of supernatural influence.

Again, could we please get away from what you believe or what I believe and look at the facts? Examine the evidence for evolution and against it? Realize it’s not perfect and there are many flaws in it? Realize that ID is scientific?
Christianity is definitely about faith, but it’s more about truth. Is it true? Does it match up with reality? If so, evolution³ is wrong. If not, the bible may very well be the greatest scam in the history of mankind. Will you go and find out for yourself? Examine it critically with the realization that it could be wrong? After all, that’s what science is all about, isn’t it?

1. A good start would be “Darwin’s Black Box – Michael Behe” for a very scientific discussion of irreducibly complex systems, or “Darwin on Trial – Philip Johnson” for a detailed analysis of how well the theory of evolution would hold up in court. The latter also provides tons of references to other materials. [↩]
2. “Darwin on Trial”, Philip E. Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 2nd ed., page 61 [↩]
3. To clarify, I am talking about macro evolution. Microevolution is a proven fact even creationists understand. [↩]

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1. In the image of God
2. Do I really have to read?!
3. Ethics without Religion
4. D’Souza v Hitchens