Let us begin by considering the Darwinian belief system which attempts to explain the diversity of life by purely natural means. Suppose a predator in the distant past began pursuing a herd of buffalo. One of the herd is a yearling which happens to have an overshot jaw; this unfortunate condition prevents it from grazing efficiently, and as a result, it has not attained the strength that it might have. As the predator closes in, the yearling is unable to keep up with the rest of the herd. Thus isolated, the exhausted animal is soon overtaken by the predator, killed, and eaten. Remaining members of the herd live to fight another day and pass their genes for well-formed jaws to their offspring. Nature has “selected” them for survival. English naturalist Charles Darwin famously postulated that these effects could occur over great time periods, such that not just refined species, but new, better adapted species would arise. Darwin went on to posit that this sort of explanation is sufficient to explain all varieties of life, starting from a simple organism in a primordial past, down to the immense diversity of life we see today.
While at first glance this Darwinian account comes across as entirely reasonable and in line with observed processes, it flies in the face of biblical concepts in several ways. One of these is the view of death as a normal part of life. The Bible teaches an originally good universe. When Adam sinned, God not only cursed mankind, but also (innocent) animal life, the plant world and the earth itself. This cursed world awaited the return of the new Adam who would bring restoration. In the fullness of time, Christ came to reconcile man under a new covenant, and ultimately to reconcile all things. In this biblical scheme, death is a result of sin; death of sentient animals and humans was not originally present in creation.
The Bible also includes accounts of dying bulls. Let’s consider one of these.
In the first chapter of 1 Samuel, we read of an ancient Israelite family travelling to Shiloh, the religious center of the day. They have with them three bulls, and quantities of flour and wine. Their intent is to sacrifice these to the Lord when they arrive at Shiloh. We focus on the bulls as they walk placidly along, each step bringing them closer to their destination. Clearly, they have no inkling of the fate that awaits them. Prior to the bull’s sacrifice it will be immobilized by ropes around each leg. After a brief prayer with hands laid on the animal’s head, the priest will slit its throat. The ensuing blood loss will result in the bull collapsing, then dying shortly after. The priest will sprinkle the blood around the altar, cut the bull’s body into pieces, and place these on the altar for burning.
The bull does not die because of any lack in its physical makeup, but for lack of knowledge.[1] It has no insight into the human dimension, with its abstract concepts of ownership, law, and sacrifice. Hence the bull took no evasive action prior to its death, although it certainly had the strength to do so. The biblical account is fundamentally different to the Darwinian.
The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf (revealed in the New Testament). In this story, humans are analogous to the bull. Each person’s life ticks along, day by day, like the steps of the bull toward Shiloh. Time is gradually running down on each person’s life toward certain death and judgement, but people, naturally speaking, are as oblivious to the judgment to come as the bull was to its fate.
How do we know this? Because a message from a higher spiritual dimension—the Bible—tells us so. Knowledge that we could never work out by ourselves has been communicated to us by a sympathetic Friend from the higher dimension. How can we be saved from that fate? By believing the message and acting on it—accepting a substitution on our behalf. That’s the Christian gospel in a nutshell.
Christianity is a revelatory belief system. As a human you cannot by your own reason derive Christian doctrine. You could not logically deduce from first principles that salvation is of the Jews; that the first man was Adam; that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. We know these things only because they have been revealed to us. The accounts of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament symbolize and reinforce New Testament truths.
Conversely, the Darwinian account reinforces key concepts of the secular humanist and atheist. Darwin’s account purports to explain the diversity of life without invoking the Divine. In fact, Darwin would often emphasize that his scheme left no room for any notion of plan or purpose behind either animal or human life. His notion that all life forms descended from the earliest life implies that humans and animals (and plants) are relatives. This, of course, contradicts the biblical view that all humans are distinct from the animals, and are the only creatures made in the image of God.
The Darwinian approach is based on human imagination and reasoning about nature. The Christian approach is based on human reasoning about the revealed word of God and nature, subject to illumination by the Holy Spirit. No atheist would ever agree to use the second account of the death of the bull as the basis for an intellectual theory of how life operates, because the biblical account of sacrificial animals leads to biblical concepts. And no Bible-believing Christian would (or should) use the Darwinian account, because this consistently leads to atheistic principles.
[1] This is analogous to Hosea 4:6a:” My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”