Why believing in a literal Adam and Eve matters

[Clare73]

Somehow when you say it, it doesn't sound the same as when I say it.

I'm thinkin' that says a lot. . .

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm thinkin' that says a lot. . .

You and I have different definitions for what constitutes "evaluation" and "credibility" apparently.

For me, to 'judge' the value of an ancient literary work such as the Bible isn't a moral evaluation; rather, it's a historical and epistemological one.

 

[Clare73]

You and I have different definitions for what constitutes "evaluation" and "credibility" apparently.

For me, to 'judge' the value of an ancient literary work such as the Bible isn't a moral evaluation; rather, it's a historical and epistemological one.

As Jesus believed the OT was the word of God (post #69), so I believe all Scripture is the God-breathed (theopnuestos) word (2 Tim 3:16), and that the word of God by its very nature is authoritative. . .it judges me, I don't judge it.

Time to read Knowing God by J. I. Packer, Regent College, Vancouver, recently deceased.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

As Jesus believed the OT was the word of God (post #69), so I believe all of Scripture is the word of God, and that
God's word judges me, I don't judge it.

I understand. You start with certain presuppositions about the nature of the Bible that I have never begun with. But that's ok. I get where you're coming from. I mean----there is a reason I literally have several hundred Christian theology related books on my bookshelves. I like to be familiar with the spectrum of possibilities.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

As Jesus believed the OT was the word of God (post #69), so I believe all Scripture is the God-breathed (theopnuestos) word (2 Tim 3:16), and that the word of God by its very nature is authoritative. . .it judges me, I don't judge it.

Time to read Knowing God by J. I. Packer, Regent College, Vancouver, recently deceased.

Oh yeah. I'm familiar with J.I. Packer. I've read some of his stuff.

 

[RileyG]

When AI is confronted with this statement "Catholic church allows members to accept creation as fact and history"

It responds this way:

"The Catholic Church does not require its members to interpret the creation story in Genesis literally, and it allows for acceptance of evolution as a valid scientific theory. The Church acknowledges the scientific evidence for evolution while also upholding the belief in a divine creator and the creation of the universe. The Church emphasizes that the creation narratives in Genesis are not meant to be taken as literal historical accounts, but rather as symbolic expressions of theological truths about God's relationship with creation"

==================

when AI is confronted with this statement "The Seventh-day Adventist church allows members to accept creation as fact and history"

IT responds this way

"Yes, the Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches that its members should accept the biblical account of Creation as a
literal and historical event.

Here's a breakdown of their perspective on Creation:

• Basis in Scripture: They believe the Bible, particularly the Genesis account, provides the authentic and historical record of God's creative activity.
• Six-Day Creation: Seventh-day Adventists understand the Creation week as consisting of six literal, 24-hour days, followed by God resting on the seventh day.
• Foundational Belief: The doctrine of Creation is considered a core belief for Seventh-day Adventists, forming the basis for other important aspects of their faith, including the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.
• Intelligent Design: They emphasize the idea of intelligent design, believing the intricate nature of the world points to a purposeful Creator.
• ....

Belief that God created the first man and first woman is mandatory. The Church just isn’t anti-science.

 

[Clare73]

I understand. You start with certain presuppositions about the nature of the Bible that I have never begun with.

I start with the "presuppositions" which I demonstrated in post #69 that Jesus started with.

I share Jesus' view of the OT and, therefore, the historical church's view of the NT.

But that's ok. I get where you're coming from. I mean----there is a reason I literally have several hundred Christian theology related books on my bookshelves. I like to be familiar with the spectrum of possibilities.

At what point will you decide if Scripture is the word of God and Jesus, or not?

Or is Scripure inspired in parts, and your are inspired to know the parts?

 

[Job 33:6]

I start with the "presuppositions" which I demonstrated in post #69 that Jesus started with.

I share Jesus' view of the OT and, therefore, the historical church's view of the NT.

At what point will you decide if Scripture is the word of God and Jesus, or not?

Or is Scripure inspired in parts, and your are inspired to know the parts?

Are you aware that Genesis describes ancient Israelite cosmology?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I start with the "presuppositions" which I demonstrated in post #69 that Jesus started with.

I share Jesus' view of the OT and, therefore, the historical church's view of the NT.

Right. I get that. You start with the presupposition that the whole Bible is the perfect Word of God, which then affects and transmutes every other human endeavor of thought and all evaluative categories afterward, and they are not used unless they coincide.

I do the opposite, and then I arrive at the abductive proposition that the Bible represents the general prophetic will of God through, first the Israelite Prophets, and then through Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostles.

I say it a little differently than you do, but I essentially come to a similar view of Jesus as you.

At what point will you decide if Scripture is the word of God and Jesus, or not?

I already have. You should have asked that earlier on. I was waiting for you to get to that point.

Or is Scripure inspired in parts, and your are inspired to know the parts?

I'm not advocating or prescribing any particular 'brand' or path in understanding inspiration, whatever that is. What I am doing is descriptively discerning my view from that which other Christians hold, and I won't be badgered by anyone into a particular pigeonhole of dogma about the supposed nature of the New Testament (or the Old Testament for that matter) that doesn't really explain much of anything fully or coherently. Of course, I don't really have the nerve or deep desire to want to badger them in return. I prefer mutual understanding.

For your convenience, I'll briefly present in a very summarized (and revisable) way here some of the alternative definitions which all of us Christians have at our disposal, via what I've adapted from Don Thorsen and Keith H. Reeves in their book, What Christians Believe About the Bible (2012):

1) Dictation (or Mechanical) Theory - God dictated exact words for certain people to write.​

2) Verbal, Plenary Theory - God inspired the words which each writer chose to use.​

3) Dynamic Theory - A dynamic is involved between the Holy Spirit and the writers; the bible is God's Ideas using human abilities.​

4) Concursive Theory - Like the Dynamic Theory, but maintains that the dynamic is a mystery which can't be fully explained.​

5) Sacramental Theory - Generally, God uses physical things and people to signify His meanings to and through His people.​

6) Partial, Limited or Degrees Theory - Some parts of the Bible may be directly influenced by God; other parts are people's attempts to represent what they have experienced or learned about God.​

7) Dialectical Theory - The biblical authors write under the influence of God in and through the experience of their lives.​

8) Humanized Theory - Just as it sounds: humans write what they think God is and thinks.​

And I, myself, would add​

9) Existential, Critical Theory - We find the Bible in this world, such as it is from the past, with its claims of divine influence; and we have to wrestle with these claims as best as we can, and we do so now, in THIS current life and time with the epistemic limitations that we have. If we believe the message, we believe God motivated the writers to live and write.​

​

And per @Fervent's suggestion​

​

10) Canonical/Collective Memory: The Bible represents the collective memory of the interactions with God among His people as they came to be agreed upon within His people.​

 

[Clare73]

I'd disagree here. The word τύπος (type) means a pattern, example, or foreshadowing. It doesn’t inherently require the person to be historically real, only that they serve a theological or literary function that points forward to Christ.

The effectiveness of Christ’s righteousness and imputation in Romans 5 is not dependent on the historicity of Adam, but on the reality of human sin and God’s redemptive plan.

It's not about effectiveness, it's about truth, about whether the pattern is based on actual physical reality or not.
Scripture presents it as actual and effectiual, not as symbolic which necessarily ineffectual.

The theological point stands either way: sin entered the world and Christ is the remedy. Even if Adam is archetypal or symbolic, Christ's work remains real, literal, and redemptive.

So why the need to deny the reality of the Adamic account?

All general terminology. . .reveals minimum knowledge of the atonement.
When you get down to the specifics of Jesus, his atoning work and its efficacy, it's all based on actuality, not on symbolism which can actually effect nothing.
You are minimizing the cost to Christ of his atoning work on the cross.

By your logic, the good Samaritan is all smoke and mirrors because the good Samaritan wasn't a real person. That's not how truth in the Bible works.

A little more time in the study of logic might be helpful.

 

[Job 33:6]

It's not about effectiveness, it's about truth, about whether the pattern is based on actual physical reality or not.
Scripture presents it as actual and effectiual, not as symbolic which necessarily ineffectual.

So why the need to deny the reality of the Adamic account?

All general terminology. . .reveals minimum knowledge of the atonement.
When you get down to the specifics of Jesus, his atoning work and its efficacy, it's all based on actuality, not on symbolism which can actually effect nothing.
You are minimizing the cost to Christ of his atoning work on the cross.

A little more time in the study of logic might be helpful.

I understand that you're emphasizing the importance of truth being grounded in actual, physical reality, and I agree that truth matters. But I think there’s a false dichotomy being assumed here: that something is either symbolic (and thus “ineffectual”), or literal (and thus truly powerful). That’s not how Scripture or theology actually works.

The Bible is full of symbolic patterns that are deeply effectual:

The Passover lamb is symbolic, but its power and meaning are real, both for Israel and in the typology pointing to Christ.

Baptism is symbolic, but Paul says it unites us with Christ in death and resurrection (Romans 6).

The Lord’s Supper is symbolic, and yet we are told it’s a participation in the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16).

Symbolism, when ordained by God, is not ineffective. On the contrary, it's how God often communicates and enacts truth. So when Paul says Adam is a “type” of the one to come (Rom. 5:14), it doesn’t mean that Christ’s work is less real if Adam is also functioning as an archetype. The power comes not from historical literalism alone, but from God's redemptive pattern playing out in history, sometimes through narrative, sometimes through symbol, always through divine intention.

It’s not about whether something must be literal to be effective. It’s about what the text is trying to convey, and whether we are hearing it on its own terms.

 

[Fervent]

Right. I get that. You start with the presupposition that the whole Bible is the perfect Word of God, which then affects and transmutes every other human endeavor of thought and all evaluative categories afterward, and they are not used unless they coincide.

I do the opposite, and then I arrive at the abductive proposition that the Bible represents the general prophetic will of God through, first the Israelite Prophets, and then through Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostles.

I say it a little differently than you do, but I essentially come to a similar view of Jesus as you.

I already have. You should have asked that earlier on. I was waiting for you to get to that point.


I'm not advocating or prescribing any particular 'brand' or path in understanding inspiration, whatever that is. What I am doing is descriptively discerning my view from that which other Christians hold, and I won't be badgered by anyone into a particular pigeonhole of dogma about the supposed nature of the New Testament (or the Old Testament for that matter) that doesn't really explain much of anything fully or coherently. Of course, I don't really have the nerve or deep desire to want to badger them in return. I prefer mutual understanding.

For your convenience, I'll briefly present in a very summarized (and revisable) way here some of the alternative definitions which all of us Christians have at our disposal, via what I've adapted from Don Thorsen and Keith H. Reeves in their book, What Christians Believe About the Bible (2012):

1) Dictation (or Mechanical) Theory - God dictated exact words for certain people to write.​

2) Verbal, Plenary Theory - God inspired the words which each writer chose to use.​

3) Dynamic Theory - A dynamic is involved between the Holy Spirit and the writers; the bible is God's Ideas using human abilities.​

4) Concursive Theory - Like the Dynamic Theory, but maintains that the dynamic is a mystery which can't be fully explained.​

5) Sacramental Theory - Generally, God uses physical things and people to signify His meanings to and through His people.​

6) Partial, Limited or Degrees Theory - Some parts of the Bible may be directly influenced by God; other parts are people's attempts to represent what they have experienced or learned about God.​

7) Dialectical Theory - The biblical authors write under the influence of God in and through the experience of their lives.​

8) Humanized Theory - Just as it sounds: humans write what they think God is and thinks.​

And I, myself, would add​

9) Existential, Critical Theory - We find the Bible in this world, such as it is from the past, with its claims of divine influence; and we have to wrestle with these claims as best as we can, and we do so now, in THIS current life and time with the epistemic limitations that we have. If we believe the message, we believe God motivated the writers to live and write.​

I would add:
10) Canonical/Collective Memory: The Bible represents the collective memory of the interactions with God among His people as they came to be agreed upon within His people.

 

[Job 33:6]

So why the need to deny the reality of the Adamic account?

Genesis isn't a science textbook.

 

[Clare73]

Right. I get that. You start with the presupposition that the whole Bible is the perfect Word of God, which then affects and transmutes every other human endeavor of thought and all evaluative categories afterward, and they are not used unless they coincide.

Indeed, I start where Jesus started, as demonstrated in post #69, and am not impressed with the modern machinations of man's unbelief in Scripture as the word of God, as Jesus so clearly affirmed.

I do the opposite, and then I arrive at the abductive proposition that the Bible represents the general prophetic will of God through, first the Israelite Prophets, and then through Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostles.
I say it a little differently than you do, but I essentially come to a similar view of Jesus as you.
I already have. You should have asked that earlier on. I was waiting for you to get to that point.

Then it should all enjoy the authority of the word of God, be believed and obeyed.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Indeed, I start where Jesus started, as demonstrated in post #69, and am not impressed with the modern machinations of man's unbelief in Scripture as the word of God, as Jesus so clearly affirmed.

I'm not sharing my point of view so you'll be "impressed." I'm simply informing you about my own epistemological path, which is more in the way of Journey Epistemology and Historical Coherence than in a Fundamentalist Presuppositionalism.

But hey! We each have to make our epistemological choices about how we'll travel down the Narrow Path with Jesus.

Then it should all enjoy the authority of the word of God, be believed and obeyed.

That's the general idea as far as it is possible.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I would add:
10) Canonical/Collective Memory: The Bible represents the collective memory of the interactions with God among His people as they came to be agreed upon within His people.

I like that. I think I'll add that in.

 

[Aseyesee]

Literal or not, God had to start somewhere ... but it all speaks to the selfsame process of a son being revealed in us as us (no gender implied) ... whether it was or not is in itself a distraction ... faith opens the door to/of knowledge ...

 

[Fervent]

I like that. I think I'll add that in.

It's roughly how Orthodoxy tends to think of Scripture as far as I understand it, with an emphasis on an ongoing tradition that the canonical Scriptures are the central normative element of. WHich is part of why they don't usually get caught up in the literalist controversies that plague other wings of Christianity

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

1) Dictation (or Mechanical) Theory - God dictated exact words for certain people to write.
2) Verbal, Plenary Theory - God inspired the words which each writer chose to use.
3) Dynamic Theory - A dynamic is involved between the Holy Spirit and the writers; the bible is God's Ideas using human abilities.
4) Concursive Theory - Like the Dynamic Theory, but maintains that the dynamic is a mystery which can't be fully explained.
5) Sacramental Theory - Generally, God uses physical things and people to signify His meanings to and through His people.
6) Partial, Limited or Degrees Theory - Some parts of the Bible may be directly influenced by God; other parts are people's attempts to represent what they have experienced or learned about God.
7) Dialectical Theory - The biblical authors write under the influence of God in and through the experience of their lives.
8) Humanized Theory - Just as it sounds: humans write what they think God is and thinks.
And I, myself, would add
9) Existential, Critical Theory - We find the Bible in this world, such as it is from the past, with its claims of divine influence; and we have to wrestle with these claims as best as we can, and we do so now, in THIS current life and time with the epistemic limitations that we have. If we believe the message, we believe God motivated the writers to live and write .And per @Fervent's suggestion10) Canonical/Collective Memory: The Bible represents the collective memory of the interactions with God among His people as they came to be agreed upon within His people.

I think my Process side is showing when I see most of these as complementary rather than exclusive.

 

[Clare73]

I understand that you're emphasizing the importance of truth being grounded in actual, physical reality, and I agree that truth matters. But I think there’s a false dichotomy being assumed here: that something is either symbolic (and thus “ineffectual”), or literal (and thus truly powerful). That’s not how Scripture or theology actually works.

The Bible is full of symbolic patterns that are deeply effectual:

The Passover lamb is symbolic, but its power and meaning are real, both for Israel and in the typology pointing to Christ.

No, the sacrifices actually effected the covering of Israel's sin from the wrath of God (Ro 4:7), as a type of
Christ, who removed (true) Israel's sin and the wrath of God

Baptism is symbolic, but Paul says it unites us with Christ in death and resurrection (Romans 6).

Baptims is not a means by which we enter into a vital relationship with Christ, by which we are united with Christ.
In NT times baptism so closely followed conversion that the two were considered part of one event (Ac 2:38).
But while baptism is closely associated with faith, it is not a means by which we enter into a vital relationship with Christ.
It depicts graphically what happens as a result of the believer's union with Christ, which comes with faith; i.e., through faith we are united with Christ, just as through our actual birth we are united with Adam. As we became subject to death in father Adam, so now we have died and been raised again with Christ--which baptism symbolizes, it does not effect.

The Lord’s Supper is symbolic, and yet we are told it’s a participation in the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16).

No, the Lord's Supper was the Passover meal in which they partook of the benefits of the sacrifice,
just as they did in other sacrificial meals (Lev 3:15, 7:15-18, 19:5-8) .

Symbolism, when ordained by God, is not ineffective.

You've turned the world upside down. . .reality is based on symbol.
Reality is not based on symbol, reality is based on fact.
It is symbol that is based on the fact of reality, in both the physical order and the spiritual order.

On the contrary, it's how God often communicates and enacts truth. So when Paul says Adam is a “type” of the one to come (Rom. 5:14), it doesn’t mean that Christ’s work is less real if Adam is also functioning as an archetype.

Agreed. . .Adam is also functioning as an archetype, in addition to being the first actual man.

The power comes not from historical literalism alone, but from God's redemptive pattern playing out in history, sometimes through narrative, sometimes through symbol, always through divine intention.

Why the need to deny the reality of what Scriture presents as reality?

It’s not about whether something must be literal to be effective. It’s about what the text is trying to convey, and whether we are hearing it on its own terms.

I say the terms of the text present the text as reality, which for some reason you need to deny.