Why Christianity and Evolution are Incompatible

I haven't read the article in its entirety, but supposedly the Pope just announced that evolution and Christianity are compatible. I can almost hear the cheers and applause coming from those who believe that Christianity is finally becoming more relevant and with the times. More and more professing Christians have taken this stance over the last few years, claiming that it does not mess up who Jesus is by saying that we evolved from a single-celled organism over billions of years of time. However, I am going to demonstrate that If man evolved from a single-celled organism and was not created completely at a specific point in time, here are the ramifications: It undermines 1) the theology of sin and death, 2) the doctrine of man, 3) God's salvific plan and 4) even the character of God himself.
The Bible talks about God creating a perfect world and at the pivotal of his creation, God made Adam and Eve and called it "very good" (Gen. 1:31). Once they disobeyed, sin entered the world and we were separated from God, for God had said that if they ate of the fruit, then they "shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Thus death now reigned. Everything that was good and perfect was now corrupt, and we begin to wait until the promised Savior would appear and restore us physically and spiritually, and also create a new heaven and a new earth.

Now, if someone believes in evolution, then obviously they believe that death has long existed before Adam, since creatures were dying and being born for millions of years beforehand. This would then imply several things. A) Since Adam is the first person to be referred to as made in the image of God, what about his parents? Were they not made in God's image? How is that possible? How does one "evolve" into an image-bearer of God? Does that imply then that intelligence makes us image bearers of God instead of our essence? Because scripture is pretty clear that even as babies, we bear the image of our creator, regardless of intelligence.

B) A bigger issue, evolution implies that death is not a consequence of sin, and therefore death is not negative! So when God promises those who trust in him that he will restore our bodies and rid the world of this awful thing called death, that doesn't make sense anymore. We have to re-think one of God's biggest promises to us, because if evolution is true, then God looked over a world full of cancer and death and called it "very good." So all the bones we have of pre-historic animals with cancer and all the people who died before Adam, God must've called that "very good" since that happened pre-Adam. So it completely undermines the creation story. Where is "the fall" of man in this?

C) Also, in light of Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” If God is making a new heavens and a new earth that will take us back to an Eden-like state, why does he promise no death in heaven if he made a world with death to begin with and called it good? This calls into question God's character and the legitimacy of his promises. It thus takes away all reliability of scripture, because no longer are we talking about literal vs. allegorical readings of the texts, but we are calling into question the very foundation of our identity as humans and as believers in Christ.

Also, when I hear the argument that it depends on how literally you read Genesis, I'd like to put out that Genesis isn't the only place that says that Adam was created as a man at one specific time, straight from the dust, and that all people came from him. But first, Jesus actually cites Genesis when the Pharisees are asking him about marriage in Mark 10:6-8: "But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’" He just quoted Genesis 2:24, which is just a few verses down from the creation account of God making Adam and Eve, male and female, at one specific moment in time. Jesus seems to at least be implying a literal reading of that text.

Besides, the New Testament explains a very heavy theological argument for what Adam's life and death did, and moreoever what Christ's life, death and resurrection will do for us, both in 1 Corinthians and in Romans.

In these letters to churches, Paul refers to Christ as our new Adam; that we are all in Adam and therefore are in sin, but that Christ died so that we can be restored to fellowship with God: "Thus it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven" (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

Perhaps the biggest and heaviest passage is found in Romans 5: 12-21 when it discusses the nature of Adam and the nature of Christ: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Clearly this would all be thrown out the window if evolution is true.

Also when Paul is sharing the Gospel with the people in Athens, he makes sure to tell them, "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26). So it's not just a matter of hey, do we take genesis literally or non-literally? These texts are just the ones I am most familiar with and I am certain there are more. One would have a tough time reading them honestly and approaching them with a healthy hermeneutic and come away saying that even a non-literal reading of the texts implies the exact opposite of what they're saying. A literal Adam is a foundation for the theological arguments Paul is making. Evolution completely washes away these arguments.

My husband and I really dove deep into this a couple of years ago. We devoted a couple weeks to buying and borrowing books about this topic, both written by Christians and by atheists. I'm not asking you to stick your head in the sand and ignore science, but I am encouraging you to consider that at the end of the day, we have to at least hang our hat on a faith that is coherent and consistent. Evolution and Christianity just can't merge together, despite what the most enthusiastic and optimistic person might say. There are too many laws of logic that are broken, and it morphs God into something that the Bible just doesn't teach.