Bart van den Dikkenberg in CNE’s Podcast: Impossible to believe in evolution and the Bible
Bart van den Dikkenberg (right) and Kathryn Idema (left). Photo CNE.
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Can a Christian believe in both God and evolution? According to Bart van den Dikkenberg, the answer is no, as the two beliefs are contradictory to the Christian faith.
Van den Dikkenberg, a science and technology editor for the Dutch Reformed newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad(RD), says that his primary concern today is seeing scientists who are embracing a form of theistic evolution in their professions. Theistic evolution, he explains, is the idea that God created everything through evolutionary processes over billions of years. Yet, the two worldviews within that theory are "competing".
Why is that the case? Some of those answers lie within his book, The Works of His Hands (De Werken van Zijn Handen). In the CNE podcast, he compared these contradictory views as evolution is considered a secular, naturalistic belief.
Although the Bible and evolution both account for how the world was created, evolution leaves out the fundamental questions of the Christian life: "What is the origin of everything?" and "What is man, and what is my relationship to God?"
He says further that theistic evolution disregards ethical questions such as "Why should a human being wear clothes and not an animal?"
Although there are variants of theistic evolutionary views that are more deistic or close to the Biblical faith, he notes, there is a catch when it comes to believing in the first and second Adam (Jesus Christ). He goes into more detail about this within the podcast.
Van den Dikkenberg also explains why believing in theistic evolution denies the miraculous side of creation.
Despite the many flaws, several Christians and their churches still embrace evolutionary concepts. How? Van den Dikkenberg explains how evolution keeps appearing in books marketed to children.
Amid the barrage of non-Christian messages, what tools are needed for a Christian to navigate a world that embraces evolution? He has several thoughts about this and raises the importance of Christians looking at where evolutionary thinking might lurk within the West.
"A death culture of euthanasia and abortion is now standard practice in the Western world," he says.
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