The Biblical World View and Comics Part 4
By Don Ensign
Evolution is the basis for the naturalist or materialist world view. This world view precludes any kind of God or outside creator. Natural processes within the universe itself are sufficient to account for all the complexity we observe from the simplest molecule to the human brain. While a number of theories have tried to harmonize the Biblical creation account with the theory of evolution—any straightforward normal reading of Genesis knows how incompatible the two are.. Natural processes within The theistic evolutionist says God used evolution as His method of creation. This idea comes up short for several reasons. First, the text of Genesis 1 states clearly that the plants and animals were created fully formed and were to reproduce “after their own kind.” Second, the character of God as revealed later precludes His using such a wasteful process in order to create living things. Christ says that God cares for the birds (Matt 6:26) and not one of them falls to the ground without Him knowing it (Matt 10:29). Would a gracious loving God use such a cruel method a evolution to accomplish His cretion? Several times in Genesis 1 we have the phrase, “And God saw that it was good.” (Vs. 10, 12,18, 21, 25, 31). How could God have pronounced such an awful method a evolution a “good” with its record of hundreds of millions of years of cruelty and death?
So what world view do comic portray? As one example, when I was a teenager I came across a fascinating comic book scene of a giant hand clutching a starry nebula a “renegade Oan” named “Krona” tried to observe the origin of the universe (Green Lantern #40, 1965). The result of this forbidden behavior was an explosion which unleashed evil on the universe. In GL #43 one reader wrote, “In Krona’ seeking of the secrets of the origin of the Guardians I found some similarity between the story and the Bible....Could that have been the hand of God as He created the universe?” The editor’s response: “The author did indeed intend his tory to be taken as you took it.” As a young Christian I was happy to have this supposed validation of my comic book reading habit. However, there are important differences between this (and most) “comic cosmology” and the Biblical world view. Evolution usually taken as a given. And while in this particular story, there was a “God” that created the universe and “life” it was not the caring and personal God of the Bible but more like that of the deists, who believe God created the universe and then was not involved further with it—unlike the God of the Bible.
In summary there are different views of reality or world views that compete for the modern mind. The pantheist (or New Age), the materialist and the Biblical are three of the most important in today’s society.
Originally printed in Christian Comics & Games Magazine #1 1996
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