The Modern Creation Trilogy. Dr. Henry M. Morris
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href="#ulink_ff596b30-21fb-5b8e-9005-6deedce47c36">6 Charles, Prince of Wales, as cited in the Foreword to the book Save the Earth. Edited by Jonathan Porritt in England in 1991.
Chapter 7
The Dangerous Route of Compromise
In preceding chapters we have shown that none of the expedients proposed for accommodating evolution and the geological ages in the Bible will work. All of them dishonor the Scriptures while seeking to satisfy majority scientific opinion, wresting them from their intended meaning in the hope of gaining a more sympathetic hearing for Christianity from the intellectual community.
But such compromises never work. The evolutionists just keep demanding more and more compromises; nothing short of total atheism will ever satisfy them! Furthermore, those Christians and Christian organizations that choose to travel this road are in grave danger, for the compromise mentality is reluctant ever to take a firm stand against the pressures and temptations of the world. The compromise road eventually ends in a precipice. Those who travel this broad highway will end up either in apostasy or oblivion as far as their Christian ministry is concerned.
“How long halt ye between two opinions?” was the challenge of the prophet Elijah to the people of God in his day. “If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24). We must follow the lead of Joshua, who commanded God’s people to “choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).
In short, Christians ought to decide either to believe God’s Word all the way, or not at all. “I would thou wert cold or hot,” said the Lord Jesus to the compromising evangelical church at Laodicea, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16).
In this chapter we shall illustrate by example both the futility and the dangers of such compromise.
The Intransigence of Evolutionists
Those who try to accommodate evolution as God’s method of creation or who try to make the days of creation into the ages of geology may succeed in winning followers among professing Christians, but they rarely if ever win over any of the leaders of evolutionary thought. The latter are not interested in compromise, and they distrust those who are. They realize full well that evolution and the geological-age system are thoroughly incompatible with the Christian God of love and mercy, and they have little sympathy for Christians who ignore this obvious truth. For example, not long before his death, the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod, a thorough-going humanist, said this:
Natural selection is the blindest and most cruel way of evolving new species. . . . I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.1
Similarly, A. J. Mattell accuses such compromising Christians not just of indifference to animal suffering but of outright dishonesty.
Many Christians have taken the dishonest way of lengthening the days into millions of years, but creationists make it clear that such an approach is nothing but a makeshift that is unacceptable biblically and scientifically.2
Mattell is neither a creationist nor a Christian, but he clearly has more respect for the honesty (if not the beliefs) of strict creationists than for the compromises of theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists.
The familiar Genesis story about Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage is mentioned in the New Testament as a warning to professing Christians who are being tempted to compromise in order to gain temporary favor with the world. Don’t be like Esau, the writer says in effect, “who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright” (Heb. 12:16).
This very pertinent warning, however, has been given a novel twist by Michael Ruse, one of the leading anti-creationists of our time, a professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, in Ontario. Ruse has devoted much of his time in recent years to defending Darwinism and fighting creationism. He has written books on the subject, participated in creation/evolution debates, and served as a witness for the evolutionists in opposing the proposed creation law in Arkansas.
However, he was brought up in a Quaker family, was familiar with the Scriptures, and has even admitted (to the chagrin of his evolutionary colleagues) that he “likes” creationists personally. He was weaned away from Christianity in college by evolutionary teaching and his unhappiness with the “exclusive” nature of the Christian gospel.
A recent issue of Zygon, a journal devoted to discussing the relation between science and religion, was dedicated to him and his writings. In discussing his background, Ruse made the following striking comment:
I am sorry to be so rude about this [not that sorry!], but perhaps my indignation is a good point on which to go out. . . . I really want to believe. I find the goodies offered by Christianity extremely attractive. But I am d — d [again!] if I am going to sell my evolutionary birthright for a mess of religious pottage.3
Despite his undoubted erudition, Professor Ruse — like Esau — has made a very bad bargain. To dismiss the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal salvation it purchased for all who follow Him as merely a mess of religious pottage, and to cling to such an unproved, unreasonable, impossible system as evolutionism as though it were a precious birthright to be retained at all costs, that is a poor bargain! As Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).
At least Dr. Ruse understands the issue — probably better than most Christians, in fact — and so he cannot plead ignorance when he eventually faces his Creator, as someday he certainly will. He expresses the choice thus:
Either humankind is in a state of original sin or it is not. If it is, then there was reason for Jesus to die on the cross. If it is not, Calvary has as much relevance as a gladiator’s death in the Coliseum.4
It is evident that the distinguished professor does clearly understand the importance of the sin question. Death is the penalty for sin and, since all men are sinners, only the substitutionary death of the sinless Son of God can atone for sin and provide salvation.
It was, therefore, necessary for God to become man — for the Creator also to become the Redeemer — in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Michael Ruse understands this also:
Either Jesus Christ was the Son of God or He was not. If He was, other religions are false. Missionaries — Jesuits past and Evangelicals at present — are right about this. If He was not, Christianity is a fraud — no salvation, no heaven, no nothing.5
Yes, Ruse understands, all right, at least with his mind. But, in his heart, he refuses to believe, because he knows that his precious evolutionary “birthright” logically would have to be renounced, along with all worldly fame.
It is remarkable, on the other hand, that so many professing Christians feel that they can somehow accommodate evolution in their Christian faith, when the evolutionists themselves (at least the leaders, rather than the followers, of evolutionary thought) practically all say it can’t be done.
A current leader in the field of evolutionary philosophy, Dr. David Hull, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, says:
The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain, and horror.6
With