Must an Intelligent Christian Be a Theistic Evolutionist?

19 “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? 20 Do you make him leap like the locust?” . . . 26 Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? 27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? . . . 15 Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you: he eats grass like an ox. . . 19 He is the first of the works of God . . .”

Job 39:19-20, 26-27; 40:15, 19a (ESV)

Suppose someone claimed that George Washington created the Internet. After all, he was president of the convention which produced the U.S. Constitution, whose Article I, Section 8 provided for an American army, which years later helped save Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s alma mater, Oxford, from the Nazis. And even though Berners-Lee did his groundbreaking work on the Internet at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, 200 years and 4,000 miles away from Washington’s setting, he used an American Apple computer, whose trade was regulated and facilitated by the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause. So, by this logic, in putting the Internet-facilitating legal structure in place, Washington was the Internet’s father. Surely, this would be an odd way of talking, but it tracks with the claims of theistic evolutionists.
In contrast, regarding the creation of the world, God nowhere claims credit for horses and eagles by referencing His general laws at work through evolution over eons of primordial history. He simply says He makes them as they are. He gives the horse its strength, agility, and adornment (vv. 19-20). He gives birds of prey their prowess in flight (vv. 26-27) and prompts them to nurture their young on the heights, away from predators (v. 27). And no less than man, the “behemoth” (possibly the hippopotamus) is an act of God’s special creation (v. 15). Indeed, behemoth is called the “first of the works of God” (v. 19); there is no hint of its descent from prior species. Notice the text’s use of present tense. God’s work is “hands on” from age to age (Colossians 1:16-17).
God makes these claims to bring Job to his senses. The poor man was under enormous pressure, suffering from a test of his devotion to God. In response to Satan’s claim that Job’s piety was based on the blessings he enjoyed, God allowed the accuser to strip away many of those blessings to see what devotion remained (Job 1:6-22). Job never gave up the faith, but he did lament his plight and complain, “I cry to you [God] for help and you do not answer me” (30:20). When God did answer, He reminded Job that he, a mere creature, was in no position to judge His supervision of all creation. With a series of “Do you?” questions (vv. 19-20), God punctured Job’s vanity, and, by extension, all whose pretensions to insight on these matters exceed their warrant.
It is conceivable that God used the mechanisms of evolution to produce the horse, hawk, eagle, and hippopotamus. He could have put general laws in place, whether those of optics, osmosis, or ossification, and let them run for millennia, with some tweaks along the way, until the animal kingdom emerged. But the burden of proof should always rest upon those who claim this, since the Bible speaks of these matters differently; it uses the language of direct design, command, and endowment, and the Christian should never feel embarrassed to use this form of expression. Evolutionists and their disciples may offer a patronizing smile when they hear it, but the fact that God speaks this way, without nuance or qualification, should embolden His people to follow suit.