The Claim's Conditions:

1. Genesis must suggest that God created only some things supernaturally.
2. Genesis must state that God created humanity in His image with the Spirit.
3. The Bible must demonstrate God's use of nature to accomplish his will.
4. There must be a plausible reason as to why evolution would thoroughly establish humankind's freewill.


Evidence for Conditions:

1. Notice that God says, "Let the water gather in one place," (Genesis 1:9). It does not say, "And God moved the water into one place." The latter quote would imply that God physically took the water and moved it. On the contrary, the writer of Genesis seems to emphasize that the water gathers to one place, most likely by the natural laws that God designed to govern our universe.

2. "Let the land produce vegetation," (Genesis 1:11). The language shows the land that was made had the ability infused in it by God to produce vegetation. Therefore, God does not create vegetation, but allows the natural processes we see today to take control once the Earth is formed.

3. God then says, "Let the water teem with living creatures," (Genesis 1:20). Then Genesis states, "So God created the great creatures of the sea and end every living thing and moving thing with which the water teems . . ." (Genesis 1:21). Second to last, "God made the wild animals according to their kinds . . ." (Genesis 1:25). Now we reach the point. See, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," (Genesis 1:1). Notice that he did not make the heavens and the earth. This is enforced again later: "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created," (Genesis 2:4). When you make something you form it with materials that are available to you. When you design a clay pot, you make it with the clay in your possession. Yet when you write a novel, you create it from your imagination. You wouldn't say, "I made a novel;" you'd say, "I created a novel." On the other side, you wouldn't say, "I created a clay pot;" you'd say, "I made a clay pot." Theistic evolution then asserts that believing that God created natural laws to govern most all of what he made does not take away His power and title as Creator. Let's say that I created a watch and now it works off of its own mechanisms. Have I not created the watch? Just because the watch no longer requires my intervention to make it work properly, does that mean I am not its creator? The Bible must pay attention to its grammar and this is why so much can be extracted from the way it is written. Theistic evolutionists often use the above argument for their position.

4. If God did create the heavens and the earth, this means that in the beginning he created all that was ever created (in regard to tangible things). From this point on in Genesis (Genesis 1:1), you will notice that God makes everything else that becomes tangible. It would be essential to know that the meanings of make and create translate similarly into Hebrew. In Hebrew, however, the words are more distinct from one another) (1). Tangibility is specified because God's second and third creation are the spirit (instincts) of animals and that of humankind's (Adam's). These two non-tangible creations could not have been made from anything that God had already created. The verb change between make and create is significant here if you read the verse again: "Let us make man in our own image . . ." Theistic evolution proposes that God has made us from what he originally created in the beginning. You will find that this has been taught since the twelfth century, starting mostly with Nahmanides and large groups of scholars who were eager to discover all that the Bible concealed to those not ready to conceive it. These scholars, Nahmanides in particular, suggested that there must have been other life forms that looked almost identical to humans before humans evolved (the Australopithecines, Neanderthals . . .) (1). Yet no one knew that the Australopithecines, Neanderthals, the members of the genus Homo and the Cro-Magnon would be discovered centuries later.

5. God made life and created the basic instincts that would help creatures survive (Genesis 1:20-21, 25). These instincts are the spirits of animals (spirit in a sense of not being tangible). As for humans, first God says, "Let us make man in our own image . . ." Then Genesis says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them," (Genesis 1:27). So Genesis has God saying that he will make man. Then there is a specific verse in itself where it says God created male and female in his image. This is the only time in the entire Book of Genesis where make and create are used interchangeably to describe the same event. Theistic evolutionists claim that God physically made humankind's form with an evolutionary process. If you look at the Cro-Magnon, their appearance is almost identical to ours. If one of them were walking around today, it is very likely you would not notice that they were a different species. So God made man's form through the evolutionary process designed to produce that result. And then theistic evolutionists state that God created man in the sense of breathing into him the Spirit. Here God creates man in his own image, because the image of God is not our physical features, but our conscience, our morality. To clarify again, God makes man's body and creates his soul. By this stage man is officially made and created in the image of God.

6. This piece of evidence will address God's nature. Theistic evolutionists point that after reading the Bible, especially the Torah, God appears to utilize nature whenever possible while occasionally using supernatural methods to accomplish his will when nature is insufficient. Look in Exodus. When Pharaoh holds the Israelites captive and Moses attempts to retrieve them, Pharaoh will not allow it, (Exodus 5:2). Pharaoh is warned that these are God's people and there will be consequences for disobeying Him. However, Pharaoh disregards the warning and is later held accountable. God does not use supernatural methods to punish Pharaoh. Instead, he sends a plague of frogs into his land: "The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them," (Exodus 8:13-14). This continues. Pharaoh resists and next comes a plague of gnats, then flies, then a plague on his livestock, then boils, hail and locusts. This type of consequence extends and it's seen that God will many times takes advantage of what he's already made instead of creating new things.

7. Then the Israelites are finally freed, they begin making their way out of Egypt. Yet Pharaoh, realizing that he has lost all of the Israelites services, decides to capture them before they can escape (Exodus 14:5). This is when God works with Moses to part the Red Sea: "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left," (Exodus 14:21-22). Now when the Egyptians pursued them, they met their consequence. "Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen," (Exodus 14:26). "The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen - the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived," (Exodus 14:28). So God used the natural wind to blow apart the sea all night. Incidentally, I also viewed a program on the History channel where scientists confirmed that a strong wind over a twenty-four hour period could still very easily part that same sea today. This again displays that God uses nature whenever possible with some exceptions like Christ's resurrection and the healing that Christ did to show that he was God's only begotten son. Theistic evolutionists also identify God with nature for the very fact that God created all natural processes (biology, physics . . .). Therefore, it would be likely for God to use another natural process to guide the course of life.

8. Theistic evolution also states that evolution in itself cannot work properly without something to guide it in a certain desired direction. They say the chances of random evolution producing all life are so extraordinary that there must be something directing it besides natural selection (2).

9. God created us with the free will to believe in Him and follow Him or not. If you met someone and they told you that they would be the best husband or wife you would find and said, "You must marry me because it's in your best interest." How would you respond? The Bible refers to our relationship with God as a type of marriage. If we worship other Gods, it is viewed as adultery on our part. So, because our relationship with Him is like a marriage, is it fair for Him to demand that you commit your life to Him as you commit your life to a husband or wife? God desires us to love Him with our own free will as you desire your husband or wife to love you. You would not yearn for robotic love, but real love. So what can be made of the world with good and evil, despair and happiness, believer and atheist? There cannot be a choice between good and evil without evil's existence. Since I have a relevant experience, I will quickly share it with you. Once I was sitting in a Logic class and my professor was demonstrating how God could not exist. He used the dated argument that because God is perfect, he could only have the possibility to create a perfect world. The conclusion was that because evil exists, the world is not perfect, and this contradiction disproves God. A student raised his hand and asked, "What if evil is a part of perfection?" My professor was dumbfounded. I'd never seen such a look of mystification on his usually confident face during the entire class. You can guess what he said next. To defend his view, he claimed that it was not possible, and while slightly stuttering he said that evil disproves God and quickly moved to the next topic. The conclusion to this piece of evidence is that evolution allows you more freedom to not believe in God, which will be further demonstrated in the next piece of evidence.

10. There is a different scenario of our universal existence here to add to this case. Let's say God used his power to instantly create everything without any trace of probable evolution (no Homo erectus . . .) along the way (which of course he had the option to do). So he disregards the evolution option and creates everything spontaneously. Now, let's say that he's created the universe to be without a doubt 6,000 years old. We humans are walking about the Earth in our complex societies and what do you think we'd believe to be the cause of our origin? God, of course. There is no other explanation for our existence. Evolution hasn't even been heard of and nothing else comes close to the reality of God and the Bible. In a sense, you no longer have the same option to walk away from God. You know He exists. You know the Bible is true. You know that if you cast God aside you'll be eternally separated from Him. Now it feels as if God is pushing you to love Him beyond the fraction of freewill that retain. And what does all of this mean? Faith is absent. Faith in God has vanished because God's presence is inherent. You no longer need a faith in God, which God desires so incredibly; you simply know He's there. You understand beyond the shadow of a doubt that your prayers are heard. You don't need to cry out to know He'll answer you. You just know because there is no other option. Faith is depleted and truth is objective. It is because of this that theistic evolutionists view evolution as a necessary part of our freewill.

11. Faith is a crucial part of a believer's love for God. This is portrayed when a woman comes to Jesus and touches his garment, believing she will be healed from her disease: "And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped," (Luke 8:43-44). Jesus says to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace," (Luke 8:48). This passage also emphasizes faith's importance when Jesus states: "Thomas believed by seeing; blessed are those who believe without seeing," (John 20:29). Because faith is a critical element in a relationship with God, evolution demands that the believer has faith in God's complete involvement in the creation of all things and in God's existence. This points toward the existence of evolution as a process that helped make life.

Claim's Conclusion:

Genesis seems to most likely present God as one who resorts to nature when it will suitably serve His will. Genesis seems to also state that God created things supernaturally and made other things naturally from the first creation. It is in this understanding that God creates all in the beginning, forms all life, and then creates the basic instincts of animals and the image of God in Adam. Therefore, God used evolution to make our form and supernatural methods to create us in His image with the Spirit or consciousness.