The Fool and the Heretic

How Two Scientists Moved beyond Labels to a Christian Dialogue about Creation and Evolution

Todd Charles Wood, Darrel R. Falk

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780310595434
• eBook ISBN: 9780310595441
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

The Fool and the Heretic is a deeply personal story told by two respected scientists who hold opposing views on the topic of origins, share a common faith in Jesus Christ, and began a sometimes-painful journey to explore how they can remain in Christian fellowship when each thinks the other is harming the church. To some in the church, anyone who accepts the theory of evolution has rejected biblical teaching and is therefore thought of as a heretic. To many outside the church as well as a growing number of evangelicals, anyone who accepts the view that God created the earth in six days a few thousand years ago must be poorly educated and ignorant--a fool. Todd Wood and Darrel Falk know what it's like to be thought of, respectively, as a fool and a heretic. This book shares their pain in wearing those labels, but more important, provides a model for how faithful Christians can hold opposing views on deeply divisive issues yet grow deeper in their relationship to each other and to God.

CHAPTER 1

WHY DARREL IS WRONG AND WHY IT MATTERS

Todd Charles Wood

Darrel R. Falk is right about a lot of things. He’s right when he says that evolutionary scientists have collected a vast amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution. He’s right when he says that there’s evidence supporting the evolution of humans from animals over millions of years. He’s right when he says that evolution is an extremely successful theory, accepted almost without question by a huge majority of the world’s scientists.

But all of that evidence and all of that support don’t make evolution true. The grand story of evolution from the first primitive cells to our modern world teeming with living things is false, which means Darrel and any other scientist who believes that evolution accurately describes how this world of living things developed are mistaken.

I am not surprised that a non-Christian scientist would accept the theory of evolution, nor am I all that surprised that Christians like Darrel might see no conflict between their faith in Christ and acceptance of evolution. But I am deeply troubled by Christians who promote the compatibility of Christianity and evolution. Ultimately, I believe they are dangerous. I believe that Darrel and other Christian evolutionists are harming the church.

Christians who accept evolution inevitably must modify their understanding of Genesis 1–11, which sparks one theological crisis after another. In essence, they read Genesis and say, “Well, it doesn’t really mean what it says.” Some might reason that the days of creation actually represent a long time, perhaps millions or even billions of years. Others would claim that Genesis is not intended to give us an exact description of how and when God created the heavens and the earth. Instead, it’s written in the tradition of the creation myth, a kind of theology written in narrative form, like the parables of Jesus. The details are unimportant, they say; it’s only the theological message that matters.

I find Darrel’s approach to Scripture profoundly unconvincing. I cannot find the logical consistency in this effort to bend Scripture to fit their science. It seems to me that there’s an arbitrary decision that in this particular part of God’s Word, he doesn’t really mean what he says. In other parts, well, of course he does. He means exactly what he says. But in Genesis, not so much. Why? Well, it’s obviously inconvenient from the perspective of science.

As Darrel and his colleagues attempt to “reimagine” what already seems pretty clear to me in Genesis, I see other passages that require “reimagining” too. For example, is Exodus 20:11 wrong when it declares, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them”? What about the apostle Paul and his detailed discussion of Adam’s sin in his epistles to the Corinthians and Romans? (To be fair to Darrel, I know that he and many evolutionary creation advocates accept the possibility of a historical Adam, but some don’t.) Or what about Peter’s discussion of the end times and the flood? If these passages which seem so clear don’t really mean what they say, how in the world can we know that any part of the Bible means what it says?

Even more troubling is the possibility of errors in God’s Word. Some of Darrel’s colleagues would have us believe that the Bible endorses false ideas about history or the creation because those details were not important. Most won’t come out and say that the Bible is wrong, but that’s certainly what’s implied. With these theological machinations, Darrel and his colleagues raise hard questions about the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible, and once that happens, a lot of things will need to change for evangelicals. Once you disavow this very clear and important part of the Bible, what’s stopping us from disavowing other parts of the Bible that also are difficult to explain scientifically, like the resurrection? It’s not just a slippery slope but an inevitability when you start pulling out the threads from the fabric of our faith. That’s exactly what Darrel wants to do. He’s confident he’s just pulling on a few loose threads, but I think once you start pulling, as he has done, the whole fabric of theology will unravel.

Here’s an example of how Christian evolutionists fiddle with the faith to make evolution compatible. Darrel and some of his colleagues like to point out that science has nothing to say about a historical Adam and Eve, but scientists tell us that modern humans evolved from a population of thousands of individuals. So how does that fit with the Bible’s depiction of Adam and Eve? Darrel and company contend that there were indeed other humans on the earth, but that Adam and Eve were singled out by God for a special purpose. There’s nothing in science to stop them from believing this, and it makes it easier to talk about Paul’s teaching on Adam if there really was an Adam. To them, this is a “safe” way to harmonize science and the Bible, but what they have done is completely alter the reality of who Adam and Eve were according to God’s Word. Eve is no longer the mother of all living (Gen. 3:20), and human nations are no longer made from one (Acts 17:26). An Edenic Adam as “tribal chief” is not the Adam of the Bible.

Darrel himself has acknowledged that this is exactly what happened in the mainline denominations. They went all-in on “higher criticism,” and where are they now? Even the most generous observers of mainline churches would agree that they have been in decline for decades, and I believe a big part of the cause of that decline is their zeal to make the Bible say what they want it to say. They want to recreate God in their own image. As I watch people stumbling down that slope to apostasy, I can’t understand why Darrel and other Christian evolutionists aren’t concerned that they might be headed in the same direction. To be fair, I think Darrel understands what’s at stake and is pretty stubborn about where he applies this type of interpretation to Scripture. That’s reassuring, but it seems so arbitrary. How do he and his colleagues decide when the Bible means what it says and when it doesn’t? Is the measuring rod really going to be what science or culture tells us is true about science or history? Do we stop reinterpreting only because we’re stubborn and don’t want to give up miracles or the resurrection? We can’t really expect personal stubbornness to make a good foundation for theology.

After all, if really clear science is the reason we have to reimagine two thousand years of theology, why stop with evolution? We have just as much scientific evidence that says when you’re dead, you’re dead. Yet in the New Testament, we read that Jesus was killed by the cruel method of crucifixion, that he was clearly dead when his followers took him off the cross and carried him to his tomb. Three days later, the tomb was empty. This victory over death—a scientific impossibility—is the fundamental cornerstone of our Christian faith. When I mention this scientific inconsistency in the Bible to Darrel and other Christian evolutionists, they just shrug and say, “Well, the resurrection is a miracle.” Of course it is! And so is creation! Why accept one miracle in the Bible and reject another, unless, of course, you are allowing science to influence your theology? And what’s keeping you from one day looking at the evidence and deciding that, you know what, science tells us that death is final. It’s medically impossible to revive a person who has been dead for three days. The resurrection must not have really happened as it is described in the Bible. Plenty of former Christians have made this move. Why not Christian evolutionists? Once again, to be fair, I know that Darrel fully believes in the resurrection, even though scientifically it doesn’t make any sense at all.

I have a hard time avoiding the conclusion that our standing with the world is a big motivation for Christian evolutionists. They want to be accepted by the broader scientific community. Darrel has said as much when he has expressed his concern that if he held to the creation account, he would lose any opportunity to influence secular scientists with his Christian faith. I can appreciate his evangelistic spirit, but I haven’t seen any evidence that mainstream scientists are becoming Christians in droves because Darrel and others accept the theory of evolution. And even if Darrel can show a few testimonies of people coming to faith through the ministry of Christian evolutionists, I can show many more testimonies of people coming to faith through the ministry of young-age creationists.¹

The unpleasant reality is that evolution itself is dangerous. It is not unusual for young people who have been taught creation in their churches to go off to a Christian college, become influenced by evolution, and ultimately abandon their faith. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the same thing happen with students who left the Christian college where I used to teach. They went to a secular university to pursue a postgraduate degree, accepted evolution, and left the faith.

If this fad of Christian evolution prevails—if we continue to interpret Scripture to accommodate the prevailing culture—we will lose our Christian identity. We will become a dead, irrelevant nonchurch, like every other church that has tried to make peace with the “wisdom” of the world. It might not happen in Darrel’s personal life, but it will happen. We will also lose an amazingly fruitful and exciting avenue of scientific research that goes deeper than Darwin, and that would be a shame. And we would certainly lose an enormous amount of time, people, and resources to something that simply isn’t true.

I have not yet discovered satisfying answers to every question raised by the theory of evolution. Because I believe the Bible means what it says, I trust that the answers are out there. That trust in the Bible might have alienated me from other mainstream scientists, but followers of Christ were never called to be like everyone else. How much more could be accomplished for both science and the kingdom if Darrel and all the other gifted scientists who love Jesus joined me in using our knowledge to explore the incredibly beautiful mysteries of God’s creation just as he described it in Genesis!

For Study and Reflection

1. How would you respond to a person who accepts much of the evidence proving the earth is round, yet still believes it is flat? Would you admire their commitment? Criticize them for their stubbornness? Dismiss them as irrelevant? Why?

2. Todd says that followers of Christ should not be like everyone else. In what ways has your faith influenced you to be unlike everyone else? In what ways do you think some Christians try too hard to be like everyone else?

3. Should Christians care whether science supports their beliefs in supernatural events such as the virgin birth or the resurrection? Why or why not?

4. Most young-earth creationists are critical of Todd for acknowledging that evolutionists have collected a large volume of credible evidence. What do you think? Is he hurting the cause by giving evolutionists so much credit? Or is he giving creationists greater credibility?

5. Todd believes that evolutionary Christians like Darrel are contributing to the church’s becoming dead or irrelevant. Do you agree? Why or why not?

6. Can you think of other examples where the ways Christians believe are hurting the church? How would you respond to a fellow Christian who you think is causing harm to the church?

CHAPTER 2

WHY TODD IS WRONG AND WHY IT MATTERS

Darrel R. Falk

Todd Charles Wood is somewhat of an anomaly to me. Over the years, I have known and interacted with many scientists or science educators who hold a young-earth perspective. I have learned much about faith from them. I have appreciated their sincerity, their deep love for the Lord, and their earnestness for the kingdom of God. Our conversations have not always been easy. Most of them believe that mainstream science has many weaknesses and that evolutionary theory is about to fail. Some are deeply concerned about the work in which I am engaged, considering me to be an agent of Satan. Amazingly, though, they have all been nice to me, and I enjoy being with them. Almost always I have sensed that Christ is at work in their lives. Jesus is clearly able to work through them despite what I think is their ignorance about how science works and especially about the overwhelming nature of the evidence for God’s working through the evolutionary process.

Todd is just like them in the depth and beauty of his faith. He is following Jesus, and I love to be there alongside of him whenever we are together. What is different about Todd is that his PhD is in molecular evolution. He hasn’t come into creation science from some side-biological discipline like medicine, cell biology, microbiology, or physiology. Todd’s graduate training is in evolution itself. In that regard, he is somewhat like another young-earth creationist I’ve had the privilege of meeting, Kurt Wise, who has a Harvard PhD in paleontology with one of the twentieth century’s most influential evolutionary biologists, Stephen Jay Gould. Todd, like Kurt, knows and acknowledges just how strong the scientific case is for evolution. Both of them know the science so well, and both of them are individuals of such high integrity, that they are constitutionally incapable of distorting the science even though it doesn’t fit their views. Todd, like Kurt, is the first to admit that evolution is not a theory in crisis. He is quite certain that it is wrong, but he thinks that most of the arguments put forward by people who come at the question without graduate training in evolutionary biology are scientifically naive and poorly constructed. Todd, like Kurt and a small group of others, thinks that the best way of showing that evolutionary biology is wrong is to develop the creation model in a manner that puts forward testable hypotheses. Theirs is a positive agenda, rather than a defensive attack on the science of evolution. If Scripture is the Word of God, Todd believes, then posing the right scientific questions and studying them will eventually show why evolutionary biology is wrong and a literalistic interpretation of Genesis is correct. I appreciate his willingness to objectively look at the evidence for evolution rather than to simply dismiss it or ridicule those of us who accept it.

Finally, Todd’s awfully nice, and I’ve grown to appreciate his efforts not only to get to know me better—few young-earth creationists have done that—but to treat me with the utmost respect and kindness. I also appreciate that Todd repeatedly reminds me of Jesus. Not only is he very gentle and kind, but he gets excited, really excited, about creation. Sometimes when I’m with Todd, I feel a little of the excitement that I think is the driving force behind creation itself. God loves all of creation more than we can imagine. He designed it and he delights in it. When I’m with Todd and he gets going on the thrill of being a biologist, I feel a bit like I’m with Jesus and feel a bit of the excitement he, as the Creator of it all, must feel when he examines the beauty of life’s processes. Todd has that same kind of joy, and as a scientist who also celebrates all that Christ has made, I find it fun to be around him. He is effervescent with joy, even during those times when I awkwardly express my thoughts about whether his project is going to be fruitful.

As a scientist, what I respect most about Todd is that he’s not out to disprove or discredit the theory of evolution. Rather, he has devoted his professional life to building a scientific case for young-earth creationism. In a textbook he recently wrote for students in Christian schools or those being homeschooled, he acknowledges that humans and apes are similar but encourages students to use science to find out why they are similar. In other words, “Don’t fight the evidence of evolution; dig deeper into science for a better answer.” That’s a refreshingly different approach to young-earth creationism. Todd believes that one day in the fut...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface: What Does Our Fighting Say About Us?
• Prologue: In the Beginning
• 1. Why Darrel Is Wrong and Why It Matters
• 2. Why Todd Is Wrong and Why It Matters
• 3. Beautiful World, Beautiful Savior
• 4. Too Good to Be True
• 5. This Will Never Work
• 6. Rescued By Brokenness
• 7. Genesis Is History
• 8. Stories Can Be True
• 9. Overwhelming Evidence
• 10. What About the Whales?
• 11. Is Darrel a Heretic?
• 12. Is Todd a Fool?
• Epilogue: What Have We Accomplished?
• Notes