Ouweneel on evolution

Originally posted on June 18, 2008 – by Andre Piet

the seventies

I remember as if it were yesterday how Dr. Willem Ouweneel, one evening during a lecture in Amstelveen (it must have been in 1976), opened my eyes to the lies of the theory of evolution. It was during a period in which one book after another by his hand appeared about the answers that Bible and science give with regard to the origin of the world. With crystal clarity he demonstrated that the doctrine of general evolution is not based on facts (on the contrary!) but on philosophy. A genuine movement formed around the magazine ‘Bible & Science’ and the ‘Evangelical College’, both of which came into being at that time on (among other things) Ouweneel’s initiative. Public debates were organized in which the gauntlet was taken up against well-known evolutionists. At an EO youth day, visitors were treated to small mirrors bearing the provocative motto: Adam or ape? TV series were broadcast in which the scientific pretensions of the theory of evolution were put to the test. And so on.

answers became problems

But the tide turned. From the second half of the eighties, Ouweneel increasingly moved in a philosophical and theological direction. And that has taken its toll. For whereas he once, as a Bible-believing and exact scientist, gave hard answers to “the great questions,” nowadays these answers are called “problems” by him. In a column this month in the Friesch Dagblad, he writes:

Whoever, as a Christian, reflects on the theory of evolution faces three problems. A theological problem: how do we read Gen. 1? That can be done in at least ten ways! A natural-scientific problem: do we have scientific evidence to believe in an amoeba-to-man evolution? In my view, at most indications. And a philosophical problem: how should we view the relationship between faith and science, especially when it concerns questions of origin? Should you separate the two, or can you integrate them? And how then? Whoever has easy answers to these questions may never have thought about them deeply enough…

the theological problem

According to Ouweneel, the theological problem is that Genesis 1 can be read in at least ten different ways. The suggestion seems to be: the literal reading has a probability of one in ten. In 1981, that same Ouweneel still made short work of the alternative reading of Genesis 1:

… in the previous century there arose Bible interpreters who hesitantly began to suggest that it was not at all intended by God or by the biblical writers that the ‘days’ in Genesis 1 were ordinary earthly days. The first chapters of the Bible would have a deeper, symbolic meaning; the ‘days’ might, for example, have been creation periods that could have lasted millions of years.
There are nowadays only very few people who still believe that. Both orthodox, ‘neo-orthodox’ (Barthian), and liberal interpreters nowadays maintain that the writer of Genesis 1 did indeed intend to say that the earth was prepared in six ordinary, earthly days.
(from: ‘de schepping in het geding’ – ‘the creation at issue’, 1981, p. 21)

the natural-scientific problem

The second problem that Ouweneel nowadays has with the theory of evolution is of a natural-scientific nature. Although, according to him, there are still no proofs for this theory, there are apparently indications. The question arises why Ouweneel has a problem with an unproven theory; in any case, the fact is that in 1981 he thought very differently about those so-called indications. I quote from the book mentioned earlier (p. 121):

Why do so many people want a ‘creation-and-evolution’ solution? Because they believe they are forced into a certain form of evolutionary theory on the basis of scientific arguments. I am, however, not in that position (…) because I reject the idea of a general evolution already on purely scientific grounds! There lies the core.

the philosophical problem

The third present-day problem of Ouweneel is philosophical: what is the relationship between faith and science, especially where questions of origin are concerned? In plain Dutch: is Genesis 1–11 also historically reliable? I quote Ouweneel once again from the book mentioned (p. 105):

In 1890 the well-known Darwinist Thomas Huxley went one step further. He wrote that he imagined that the day was not far off when faith would be separated from all facts, and especially from all history prior to Abraham, and (he continued mockingly) that faith would then proceed in triumph forever. He meant that as long as faith is grounded on hard, historical facts, it is a formidable opponent with whom one must seriously reckon. But he foresaw – and thus it was also fulfilled in the so-called ‘neo-orthodoxy’ of Karl Barth and others – that a time would soon come when faith would lose this rational, historical character and would chiefly settle accounts with the narratives in Gen. 1–11, and that faith would then become merely an irrational, absurd leap into the dark.

Where Ouweneel in this quotation still clearly shows how fatal it is to separate faith and science, nowadays the exclamation marks of earlier days have been changed into question marks.
A development which, in my opinion, does not point to evolution… Or would it be that I have not thought deeply enough about this matter?

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