Ken Ham took an Australian academic to task for his argument that cheating on one’s spouse is simply an evolutionary holdover from unfaithful ancestors. Seeking multiple sexual partners provided procreative benefits, the researcher argued, and that explains why humans today are tempted to cheat.
“Our unfaithful ancestors reproduced with greater success than their monogamous counterparts,” Australia’s Sunshine Coast Daily quotes University of Queensland’s Jason MacIntyre as saying. “Consequently, humans have evolved a tendency to cheat on their partners.”
Ham, who was born in Australia and earned a degree from the University of Queensland, cried foul on MacIntyre’s claims.
“No, people do not cheat because we have evolved ‘a tendency to cheat,'” Ham wrote in a recent blog post. “People cheat and commit adultery because of sin (the origin of which is detailed in the book of Genesis)!”
Sin, Ham argues, is what causes the desire to cheat, just as it does with all rebellious actions against God’s order.
“Instead of appealing to an imaginary group of human ancestors who passed along the tendency to cheat, we need to call sin what it is: sin! Sadly, our culture has a warped view of sin. Lately there have been more and more attempts to explain sinful behavior in light of our supposed evolutionary past.”
Christians who buy into MacIntyre’s line of thinking skew their understandings of both sin and the nature of mankind, Ham says.
“Now, what do Christians who have compromised with evolutionary thinking about the past do with research like this?” Ham continues. “Do they concede that our sinful tendencies are the result of our supposed evolutionary ancestry? Can they use this as an excuse to justify their behavior? Absolutely not! This isn’t what Scripture says. According to God’s Word, we sin because it is our fallen nature to sin.”
A staunch young earth creationist, the Answers in Genesis founder draws a line between believers who “compromise” on evolution and the myriad of other compromises against biblical truth.
“One of the problems with compromise in one area of Scripture is where do you stop compromising?” he asks. “If Christians accept the idea of human evolution, then why not accept the idea that our sinful tendencies are really just evolved tendencies? But this completely changes the Bible’s definition of sin and why we sin and face the penalty of death for our sin, ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned’ (Rom. 5:12). A belief in evolution strikes right at the heart of the gospel!
(Ham does offer a caveat on his feelings toward Christians who believe in evolution, however: “To be clear: there are Christians who believe in evolution and their salvation is not in doubt if they have placed their faith in Christ—but their compromised position regarding Genesis does undermine the authority of God’s Word.”)
Ultimately, Ham warns against entertaining the idea that evolutionary ancestors are the cause of our temptation, encouraging believers to be consistent in identifying and calling out the true culprit.
“As Christians, we need to be bold in standing on God’s Word and calling sinful behavior what it is—sin,” he says. “We don’t sin because ‘evolution made us do it.’ We sin because we are sinful people in rebellion against our Creator. But, praise God, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to ‘forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ if we will ‘confess our sins’ (1 John 1:9).”
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