BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: Some scientists believe the theory of evolution disproves the Bible and therefore the Bible is not true. Geology, archeology and the fossil record do not, they say, line up with the events in the Holy Bible. Dear friends, can the Bible help us conclude once and for all the creation versus evolution debate?

The Bible: the basis of our faith in the Church Of Christ, which answers questions about proper worship, the right relationship with God, and most importantly, salvation. That’s in the Bible.

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: I’m Bob Pellin, and welcome to the program That’s in the Bible. Members of the Church Of Christ firmly believe that the words of our creator, our Almighty Father in Heaven, are firmly written in the Holy Bible. The Bible serves as the sole basis of our faith. Our lives and our service to God are also guided by it. 

However, we acknowledge that there remain many in this world who do not accept the Bible as a communication from our Almighty God. And when looking at the issue of creation and comparing the Bible and evolution, they rely on their default knowledge acquired at school or concepts they’ve heard in passing or even on internet forums. Very few question what they’ve learned in academics and compare it to the Bible. Izze from San Diego did though. And she asks:

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How would one go about living their life by the Bible when there is so much evidence for evolution?

• Izze, San Diego 

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: And Rashian asks this important question: 

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Is it possible for the story of creation and the theory of evolution to coexist with each other? When God created all of the animals could He have created the prehistoric fish, reptiles and mammals first, which then evolved into the animals that we see today?

• Rashian 

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: So, dear friends, to help us in our discussion and responding to these questions, let’s break it down and pose these questions together. 

What is the theory of evolution? 

And does the fossil record prove the theory of evolution? 

Does the Bible describe kinds of animals? 

Did God create man to evolve? Has evolution debunked the Bible? 

These are important questions. So let’s begin with the first question. Just to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing. What is the theory of evolution? Let’s look at an online dictionary, the Oxford Reference Dictionary. And this is quoted from there. 

In biology, the genetic transformations of populations through time resulting from genetic variation. And the subsequent impact of the environment on rates of reproductive success. See also Darwinism.

Oxford Reference Dictionary 

Dear friends, this definition mentions Darwinism, which is the nickname for the theory of evolution of species by natural selection. It was made popular, as we all know by Charles Darwin back in the 1800s. He studied extensively the fossil record in the pursuit of his theory that through selective genetic advancements, a species would evolve into another species entirely, and that would be over an extended period of time.

He wrote extensively on the topic, which includes his famous book The Origin of the Species, which became an important foundation stone of the whole theory of evolution. But here we ask, dear friends, does the fossil record prove evolution? Even Darwin himself, here’s a quote from Charles Darwin recorded in his very famous book Origin of the Species.

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion? Instead of the species being as we see them, well defined? …But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? …Why, then, is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Oxford University Press, New York 1998 pp. 140, 141, 227

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: So, dear friends, according to Charles Darwin himself, his theory could not be confirmed by the fossil record. Why not? Because his theory states that animals evolved from one species or kind to the next, gradually, over millions of years. And so there must be millions of transitional forms as one species evolves into another that should be found in the fossil records all over the world.

For example, if the dog evolved into a monkey, what we should find in the fossil record are millions of fossils, 20% dog, 80% monkey, then 40% dog and 60% monkey, etc., showing the linear, obvious and concrete intermediate forms. While virtually no fossils of complete monkeys and complete dogs. Yet dear friends, that’s not at all what the actual fossil record reveals.

Modern evolutionists generally do not believe that man evolved from apes, but rather that we share a common ancestor with them. They look for any anatomical feature that looks intermediate between that of apes and man. Apes that are found in the fossil record having these features are then immediately considered to be a common ancestor to man. Evolutionists, well, do you know they’re willing to accept mere similarities between the fossilized bones of extinct apes and the bones of living men as proof of our common ancestry?

We should then, however, find fossils of a half human and a half ape-like creatures at various degrees of their evolution. But just as we quoted, like what Darwin, Charles Darwin himself feared, that’s not what is found in the fossil records. The handful often presented when researched, are, well, they’re just shown to be simple hoaxes or fossils of subspecies, but never an evolved new kind or species.

The science of paleontology and paleoanthropology disproves this popular evolutionary belief. So then, dear friends, since the sciences cannot agree, we will turn to the Bible in our search for answers, our search for truth. Does the Bible describe kinds of animals? Were humans and animals described as the products of an evolutionary process, or by each individual exact kind or species?

Let’s check. And we turn to Genesis once again, chapter one. And this time verse 24 and 25 for the answer:

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 

Genesis 1:24-25 New International Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: So, dear friends, living creatures were created according to their kinds. Wild animals, livestock and all the creatures, all kinds and species. If the biblical account was not true, then the last 150 years of advancements in fossil research would be teeming with intermediate forms.

But yet they still call it the theory of evolution, because it cannot be proven by the millions of fossils discovered throughout history. There have been presented by evolutionists, yes, few alleged intermediary fossils, but very, very few. And what is most often the result of further scrutiny of such fossils? 

Well, the popular Piltdown Man is a good example. It was where an unscrupulous alleged scientists back in 1912 took a jaw of a modern day orangutan and the skull of a man, and then combined them and declared them an intermediary missing link fossil evidence of evolution. You know, it stayed in the fossil record for almost half a century, influencing scientists’ fossil findings and research conclusions. There have been other debunked alleged intermediary fossils as well.

But the truth is the fossil record confirms the biblical account. I repeat, the fossil record confirms the biblical account. There have been many extinct species found by hard working scientists. There’s no doubt about it. These all represent either additional varieties of present kinds or species, or else examples of kinds which have themselves become extinct. 

The paleontological fossil record, it’s quite ample to present the true state, true and accurate state of the ancient world. If the Bible tells us that God created animals in kinds and species, what else does it tell us about the earth? And in fact, all living things in it? Let’s continue our turning to the Holy Scriptures for answers to these questions. Job chapter 12 for example, verses seven through ten reads: 

 “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know That the hand of the LORD has done this,  In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?

Job 12:7-10 New King James Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: Dear friends, the Bible teaches us that God created life and that the earth will teach us if we study it. But teach us what? Answer of the Bible: “that the hand of the LORD has done this.” And we now know that the fossil record supports the biblical account of creation and the biblical account of the origin of man. 

And regarding the origin of man, dear friends, if having to choose creation versus evolution, some may say, well, God the creator could have created man to evolve, right? So we ask, did God create mankind to be an evolving creature? How does the Bible describe the creation moment? Let’s go back to the very first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis. In fact, will we’ll go back again to chapter one, and this time we’ll continue to verse 26 and 27 where it says: 

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;  male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:26-27 New International Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: So dear friends, people were created by God to be in His image and to rule over the fish and birds in the sky, not to evolve from them. Note that all the animals already existed. They were formed and complete in their creation as man was. How else does the Bible describe the moment of creation? Well, the Bible goes on further to describe in chapter two, verse seven, back again to the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. And it reads here this way:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7 New International Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: And, dear friends, what’s God hoping for regarding his creation of man? And we continue in the book of Acts, where the following is recorded, chapter 17:26 through 28. And it reads:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Acts 17:26-28 New International Version 

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: So dear friends, God created people so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him. What a beautiful notion and invitation from God, right? To reach out and know Him. But, you know, unfortunately, do scientists attempt to explain the origin of life in other ways?

Absolutely, yes. In fact, scientists invented a term to explain the origin of life, which they claimed emerged from a primordial soup. And they call it abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is the supposed spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter by means of chemical interactions. 

But this raises more questions than answers like where did the chemicals come from? Where did the matter come from? How were they formed together to make the first cell? And all of this supposedly happened by random chance. 

Let’s turn to the Bible for possibly the most direct explanation of creation ever recorded, and it is what’s cited here in the book of Hebrews chapter three, verse four. I quote: 

For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.

Hebrews 3:4 New King James Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN: Dear friends, this biblical statement cannot be refuted. When we see a house, we know someone built it. It’s not reasonable to believe that a house could build itself, right? Even if you have all of the parts of the house present, random processes cannot build it.

What is needed is someone to build it and that someone already implies intelligence, right? So in conclusion, can anyone claim that evolution has debunked the Bible? Oh, no. Today there remain scientists, however, that refuse to abandon the theory and have turned to speculate about imagined conditions of atmosphere, the ocean, and about ancient processes that have no counterpart in the scientific world of today.

Dear friends, you know, there’s another line of so-called evolutionary evidences proposed, and it’s proposed from embryology. It claims that all animal embryos are similar in their early stages, like showing, for example, what appeared to be gill slits like fish and tails. These then grow and become lungs and legs. But the truth remains, which is that these visible similarities are not evidence of relationship or of common origin.

Why are we so certain about that? Because at every stage of examination of the genes in those cells, well, unfailingly reveals the embryos’ distinct species or kind. Science again further disproves the theory of evolution. It can be argued that the facts discovered by science fit the biblical account of creation better, much better than they fit the theory of evolution.

Every discovery that presents some new objection to evolutionary theories is just what we might expect if creation really happened as described in God’s Word, the Holy Bible. There’s so much evidence in science in our time that debunks the evolutionary theory and points instead to the truthfulness of God’s words recorded in the Holy Bible. It is therefore our faith as members of the Church Of Christ, that God is Almighty and powerful, and the creator of all things.

Why do we believe that? Not merely because science points it to be so, but we turn to the Holy Bible, where our faith has its sole basis. And we do so turning to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11, verse three, which reads: 

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Hebrews 11:3 New International Version

BROTHER BOB PELLIEN:  Dear friends, so we have faith because we have confidence in our Almighty God and in His power and in His words. And make no mistake, our faith is not a desperate effort to hold on to our suppositions at any cost. Why? Because the facts of science fit our faith. Prove our faith as a true servant of God would expect. Dear friends, let’s review now what we have learned together from our study today. 

We asked initially, what’s the theory of evolution?

We learned that evolution is the theory in science of transitional forms of animals, including humans, over long periods of time. Charles Darwin was one of its biggest influences. 

But does the fossil record prove the theory of evolution? 

Well, we learned no, it does not. In fact, quite the opposite. While millions of fossils have been found, thousands of species, none of them have been successfully found as the missing link. And that proves that evolution remains a theory. 

Does the Bible describe “kinds” of animals? 

Absolutely, yes. The Bible describes God creating animals in their kinds or species. 

Did God create man to evolve? 

No. He created man to rule over the animals, never to evolve from them. They were created each on their own, of their own kind. 

So has evolution debunked the Bible?

No. And it never will. Nor can it ever. The Bible is God’s Word, and it’s timeless and dear friends,  as science progresses towards truth, again, it will align itself, always, with the history recorded in the Bible that we believe in fully as God’s nation. 

We’d like you to continue learning about the teachings of the Bible taught here inside the Iglesia Ni Cristo, the Church Of Christ. Please visit us online and browse the different topics, or set up an appointment to meet with a minister of the gospel. And if you have any questions about the Bible or salvation, please email them to us. I’m Bob Pellien. Thanks for watching. See you next time right here on That’s in the Bible.