The Bible teaches plainly enough that God created mankind as unique among his creatures. God made them "after his own image" (Gen. 1:26 ff.). Although Christians often take this simple biblical fact for granted, many could benefit a great deal by thinking through this matter more carefully in light of the doctrine of evolution and the ethical issue of slavery. Let's fix that right now.

This special status graciously given by God to BOTH the man and woman together as set apart from the animals -- reigning over them as king and queen of creation -- makes an incredible conceptual difference when it comes to political and theological debate. For instance, evolutionists must necesarily deny such a dignity granted us by God, for they view humanity as merely animals (albeit more advanced ones). On their view, man is just a better-adapted animal. On the biblical view, he is no animal at all. He is a different kind of creature. This is why when the Scripture refers to a man as a "beast" it is no bare description, but a deliberate insult.

Yet this evolutionary point -- the alleged identity of man and beast as of the same kind (which atheistic and agnostic types often foolishly invoke as a license to act like animals) plagues them like a noose around the neck in ethical debates. For you see, most evolutionists also happen to oppose slavery.

Follow this line of reasoning closely now. The laws of every land consider it proper for men to own animals, and yet most (the civilized ones) forbid a human to own another human (i.e. slavery). By forbidding slavery, but not animal ownership, our laws distinguish sharply between the dignity of man, and the lowliness of animals. The Christian has an easy explanation at the ready: God created man and woman SPECIALLY in his likeness, after his own image; but the animals created with no such glory. This makes slavery wrong and animal ownership just peachy, so long as we do not abuse the animals we own. The Bible says, "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal," so that the Christian ownership of animals must be tempered with kindness.

But imagine for a moment, that you are a neo-Darwinian evolutionist. You must somehow - on your view - make a distinction between man and animal to justify your opposition to slavery. But on what possible grounds? For, on this view, man and animal merely differ as to "how advanced" each is. They do not differ in KIND as with the biblical account.

This leaves the evolutionist with no way to account for WHY (s)he thinks slavery is immoral. He is actually borrowing (under the table, so to speak) from the Christian outlook to justify the unique sense of outrage he may hold against the institution of slavery -- as though men are special and different from the animals in kind -- which he then denies as an evolutionist.

Well, we have bad news for the neo-Darwinian crowd: You folks CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either man really was and is created in God's image, so that slavery is wrong and owning animals is yet fine -- OR ELSE -- man is a mere animal with no ethically-relevant difference from giraffes, zebras and pigs, since he does not bear God's image. But this would affirm slavery in principle, by breaking down the barrier between man and beast -- even if no honest neo-Darwinians come forward to admit the truth.

Punchline? In the struggle for philosophical survival, evolutionists had better stop monkeying around and start doing some pretty fancy adapting to the laws of logic, lest their pet theory find itself unfit to survive public scrutiny. So far, it looks like they're content to run about, slipping on their own ethical banana peels.