First published:
Creation
30(3):48–49
June 2008

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Evolution—the ultimate antidote to spirituality

by David Catchpoole

Which major world philosophy denies the existence of an actual spiritual realm?

It isn’t Hinduism or Buddhism. Nor is it Islam. And it certainly isn’t Judaism or Christianity. Nor is it any of the animistic religions such as Australian Aboriginal spirituality. And it isn’t even agnosticism, which at least leaves open the possibility of a spiritual reality.

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The answer is atheism. So how do atheists explain where humans and their ideas about spirituality came from? By ‘evolution’, of course. As man evolved, ideas about a spiritual realm evolved too. But there is no actual spiritual realm, say the atheists—it’s only chemical reactions within the brain that trick the believer into thinking the spiritual realm is real.¹

So how, if the spiritual realm is not real, did such beliefs arise?

It’s simple, say the evolutionists. The fact that spirituality evolved means it must have conferred some survival advantage. For example, by providing ‘laws’ and ‘taboos’ against murder, infidelity, incest, etc., which helped individuals and groups to pass their genes on more successfully to succeeding generations.

Knowing this, one can truly say that evolution is the ultimate philosophical antidote to spirituality. Yet, amazingly, I meet many Christians who are apparently oblivious to this, as they say: ‘I believe in God and evolution—I don’t see any contradiction.’ But the Bible says that ‘God is spirit’ (John 4:24), while evolution (as understood by its leading proponents) says there is no spirit realm (it’s a trick of the mind), there are no evil spirits, no Holy Spirit, no ‘God is spirit’.

Composition of images: Eye by Georgios M.W., stock.xchng; sunset by Bev Lloyd-Roberts, stock.xchng; cross/people from stockxpert.

Obviously people who claim there’s no contradiction either don’t know what the Bible really says about God, or don’t know what evolution textbooks really teach. (Or maybe they’re ignorant of both!) I say to such people, to find out what evolution is really about, just ask an evolution expert. Will Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences at Cornell University, is certainly such an authority—a teacher of evolution at the highest level. He says:

‘ … belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.’²

And consider, too, the words of former head of UNESCO and leading evolutionary biologist Sir Julian Huxley (grandson of ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ Thomas Huxley), who made it clear that man invented ‘God’, not the other way around:

‘In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.’³

‘So did religion.’ Thus evolution leaves no room for an actual spiritual reality, only a perceived one.

Reality—a great antidote to evolution

If evolution were true, then everything we see happening in the world around us ought to make sense in the ‘light’ of evolution. But it doesn’t. Sometimes things occur which defy materialistic explanations and which point so strongly to the supernatural that even diehard atheists, forcibly confronted with the reality of the spirit realm, have converted to Christianity.

One former atheist writes of the events leading to his conversion:

‘I could go on about such occurrences, which became increasingly sinister, … no rational person in my situation could go on believing in materialism much longer … I was witnessing the spiritual warfare between Christ and Satan … now I had been shown that the “bad guys” were for real, it made good sense for me to join up with the “good guys” as soon as possible.’⁴

Indeed. And other events happening today defy evolutionary explanation too. There’s no evolutionary logic as to why middle-class (or even wealthy), well-educated people undergo expensive pilot training so as to hijack passenger planes and fly them into tall buildings. Or why people strap bombs to themselves and detonate them in crowded market places, trains and buses. There’s no evolutionary logic to such destruction—how do such actions help in the passing on of more genes?

But from the Bible, such things can be readily understood. There is a spiritual realm, and an evil angel (originally created ‘very good’, who has since fallen) called the Destroyer, and people whose actions are not serving the One true Creator are in line with the Destroyer, whether they realize it or not.

Jesus said, ‘He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters’ (Luke 11:23).

So, are you with Him, or against Him?

Related resources

Walking through Shadows

by Ken Ham and Carl Wieland

Suffering, death and loss—how does it square with a loving God? Carl Wieland recalls his own personal tragedy in a horrific car accident more than twenty years ago, which left him horribly mangled. He shows not only how the Bible answers the hard questions, but how an understanding of the true history of the world can actually help one to cope with personal tragedy. In the second section of the book, Ken Ham describes the heartbreak as his brother Robert, a dynamic young preacher of the gospel, slowly deteriorated and died from a rare degenerative brain disease. Remarkable answers for hurting people.

References and notes

1. But atheists, to be consistent, need to acknowledge that their thoughts about atheism and evolution are themselves the products of brain chemistry. Sadly though, they rarely (never?) do. Return to text.
2. Provine, W.B., ‘No free will’ in Catching up with the Vision—Essays on the Occasion of the 75^th Anniversary of the Founding of the History of Science Society, Margaret W. Rossiter (Ed.), Chicago University Press, Illinois, USA, p. S123, 1999. Return to text.
3. Huxley, J., Essays of a Humanist, Chatto & Windus, London, UK, p. 78, 1964. Return to text.
4. From the account of Dr Carl Wieland, now Managing Director of Creation Ministries International—Australia, in Wieland, C., and Ham, K., Walking through Shadows, Master Books, Arkansas, USA, 2002. (Quote from pp. 35–36.) Return to text.

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