Evolution as Religion

Human evolutionAn exceeding number of evangelical Christians have long crusaded against Evolution Theory solely because it discredits Abrahamic teaching. But is this really the most appropriate doctrinal or theological battleground? It occurs to me today—and I hope to explore the idea in a future post—that Evolution Theory is a greater doctrinal threat to the premise of salvation than it is to scriptural inerrancy.

Evolution Theory does not simply say that God did not create the universe, but that sentient life has no need of redemption. If homo sapien evolved from acephalic bacteria to amoral primate to cognitive human, then there is no inherent evil nature. Moreover—and more importantly—if Evolution brought homo sapien from the innocent animal to the self-aware human…then Evolution will continue to improve humanity to perfection. In other words, Evolution Theory cannot be understood only as a historical postulate but also as a future prognostication.

Engaged from an entirely secular mindset, Evolution Theory supplants Abrahamic religion by denying any need for redemption. This is to say, over time homo sapien will evolve into increasingly perfect creatures (and a slow crawl is to be expected). There is therefore no need to hasten humankind’s improvement any more than there is to judge humankind’s snail-paced progress. Any present wretchedness owes to Evolution’s slow hand rather than an innately damnable soul.

Evolution Theory implies, “we will save ourselves” which is the absolute antithesis to Abrahamic faith and the very height of hubris to think that we mortals could aspire to moral equality with God. Of course, without a fundamental belief in God, then homo merely aspires to be better tomorrow than it is today without any concrete metric or measure.

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