Robin asks this compelling question:

A believer friend of mine shared with me that she doesn’t “put God in a box” and that she thinks He created us any way He felt like.

I was shocked that she didn’t believe in the creation of Adam as a fully developed man. Why is it important for a believer to believe God created man in his own image rather than believe that God allowed us to crawl out of the pond scum?

Robin answers her own question. If we believe in theistic evolution, then ultimately, we are all the product of pond scum.

And God did create us the way He chose to create us. And then He told us about it over and over again, not just in Genesis 1-2, but all over the Old Testament and again in the New Testament. The real question for Robin’s friend is this: Does God ever tell us what He did? If so, unless He can lie, then He has revealed what is true. God can’t lie. So all He says is true.

Of course, some who believe that Adam and Eve were born do not believe in theistic evolution. There are people who believe that God initially created earth and plants and animals and human-like creatures, often called hominids. He did not create them via evolution. He created them directly. Then He chose Adam and Eve to breathe on them the breath of life. When He did, they moved from being hominids to humans. They were the first humans.

But, and here is another answer to Robin’s question, it always matters that we believe what God has said, even if we don’t know what difference it makes. What we believe impacts how we live (Rom 12:2). If we wrongly believe in theistic evolution, or even that Adam and Eve were not created as God reports, then it will negatively impact our mindset and our walk with Christ.

Sadly, many Bible and theology professors in leading conservative seminaries and Bible colleges now say what Robin’s friend said. It is not simply people in very liberal churches and schools who say such things. The idea that Genesis 1-3 is a mixture of truth and “poetic history” (or myth) is now well accepted in some conservative circles.