Adam and Eve

[Shane Roach]

I am largely unfamiliar with the theology of theistic evolutionists. I am not a hard core YEC, but on the other hand I simply cannot fathom what possible "proof" one could ever come up with that would somehow eliminate the possibility that God created the world in 6 days and then made the world look as it does in order to confound the wise with foolish things, as the scripture says.

Still, I have long been convinced that whatever the truth of creation is, it is not all that important to Christianity. The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

Are most theistic evolutionists also universalists, or do they deny literal interpretations of other books like the Revelation or even the Gospels?

How do you shift gears from denying the first several chapters of Genesis to acknowledging the rest of it?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

There is no party line among TE's, their theology simply reflects that of their respective churches. The whole spectrum is represented here from very conservative who probably share a pew with you on Sunday to liberal Unitarians. TE is not a theological position as much as an acknowledgement that the book of Nature is from God as well as the Scriptures, and that the two need to be read in some kind of concert.

 

[Shane Roach]

That's all well and good, but I am asking for specific thesitic evolutionists' views. I could pretty much figure that much out myself.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

That's all well and good, but I am asking for specific thesitic evolutionists' views. I could pretty much figure that much out myself.

there are no specific TE views.


The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

for example, about 1/3 of the regular TE posters on this forum defend a literal Adam and Eve. Framework interpretation of Gen 1 is not the same as seeing Gen 1-5 as mythological or allegorical. I don't believe you understand exactly how diverse a population TE's are. As conservative a theologian as BB.Warfield was TE as well as J.G.Machen(probably, the evidence is not as conclusive as with BBW). You can not distinguish my theology from the most conservative Prebyterian unless you look at the precise differences between FI and OEC/YEC, which are almost entirely restricted to Gen 1.

 

[Shane Roach]

there are no specific TE views.


The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

for example, about 1/3 of the regular TE posters on this forum defend a literal Adam and Eve. Framework interpretation of Gen 1 is not the same as seeing Gen 1-5 as mythological or allegorical. I don't believe you understand exactly how diverse a population TE's are. As conservative a theologian as BB.Warfield was TE as well as J.G.Machen(probably, the evidence is not as conclusive as with BBW). You can not distinguish my theology from the most conservative Prebyterian unless you look at the precise differences between FI and OEC/YEC, which are almost entirely restricted to Gen 1.

Ahem,

I am not here even to so much as argue, sir, but I am getting tired of having this same problem with you everywhere I go. I didn't say there WAS a consistent view among theistic evolutionists. I am looking for what individual, specific theistic evolitionists believe.

If you would like to share yours, great. If not, fine too, but stop putting words in my mouth and stop speaking for the entire world okay? I want to know what individual people think and feel, and I do not want to argue.

Clear?

 

[Jase]

I am largely unfamiliar with the theology of theistic evolutionists. I am not a hard core YEC, but on the other hand I simply cannot fathom what possible "proof" one could ever come up with that would somehow eliminate the possibility that God created the world in 6 days and then made the world look as it does in order to confound the wise with foolish things, as the scripture says.

Still, I have long been convinced that whatever the truth of creation is, it is not all that important to Christianity. The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

Are most theistic evolutionists also universalists, or do they deny literal interpretations of other books like the Revelation or even the Gospels?

How do you shift gears from denying the first several chapters of Genesis to acknowledging the rest of it?

I haven't really made a stance on Adam and Eve yet as I'm a fairly new Theistic evolutionist. I lean towards them existing, but not necessarily being the first humans. Merely the first spiritually aware ones. But I don't see sin as a tangible concept anyway. Sin is just a transgression against divine law. I don't quite see how sin itself can alter the universe, as many creationists claims it does without attributing some supernatural power to an abstract concept.

I'm not a universalist, but as of late i'm leaning away from the western fundamentalist view of Hell. The Gospels I hold to be literal, at least what is intended to be literal as I still think there is metaphor contained in them. Revelation is another tricky topic for me. I think it is the most metaphoric book in the Bible, and I think there are a lot of difficulties with it. Such as the way it portrays God, how it almost never became canonized and took 400 years for the Church to agree on its authenticity. How the person usually attributed to writing it would have been a 100 years old when he wrote it. How it has large similarities to the book of Daniel. There was a Jewish version of Revelation believed to have been written 25 years earlier that is more coherent than the current version, but mostly deals with the Roman Empire - not some future Apocalypse.

Revelation is a tough one. I'm still struggling with that one. I think the events in it seem rather unecessary and don't portray God in a very good light though.

 

[Mallon]

The topic of whether TEs believe Adam and Eve were real people comes up a lot on these forums. In fact, I remember having this discussion just a couple weeks ago. It's probably worth perusing the archives back a few pages to read what's already been said.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

use the forum search tools

http://www.christianforums.com/t3138916-question-for-tes-who-believe-literal-adam-eve.html
http://www.christianforums.com/t3106509-te-attitude-about-genesis.html
http://www.christianforums.com/t2559238-the-gospel-and-theistic-evolution.html
http://www.christianforums.com/t3083063-friendly-questions-to-tes.html
http://www.christianforums.com/t2957906-te-has-nonexistent-theology-.html

everyone of these previous threads is a direct answer to your question. just glance at the titles.

 

[Shane Roach]

Thank you Jase. Some of what you are saying is confusing to me. It appears however that there is a flurry of effort to make sure this thread does not get off the ground, and until all the hangers on decide to leave it alone long enough to establish some one on one discussion about the topic I am afraid it is going to be hard to get into.

Mallon, rmwilliams... I am serious here. If you do not want to talk specifically about your own beliefs, please leave the thread alone, okay? No one is forcing you to talk here. You have something you already posted that you want to repeat? Post the link TO THAT POST. I am not interested in wading through 5 years of dead threads.

I don't see what is so hard about just relating your own beliefs.

 

[Shane Roach]

I'm going to be checking back here, so Jase if you want to discuss, don't give up. I just want the thread to reach a point where there are more people wanting to talk than there are wanting to make it go away.

 

[Mallon]

Mallon, rmwilliams... I am serious here. If you do not want to talk specifically about your own beliefs, please leave the thread alone, okay? No one is forcing you to talk here. You have something you already posted that you want to repeat? Post the link TO THAT POST. I am not interested in wading through 5 years of dead threads.

And I'm fairly certain that most TEs here who have already answered your FAQ do not wish to repeat themselves yet again. rmwilliamsll did you a favour by patiently providing you with links to answers from previous TE posters. You may check those out in addition to reading any answers you may receive here. My point is that if you do not receive many replies, it is because this very question of yours has been addressed elsewhere recently.

I don't see what is so hard about just relating your own beliefs.

And I don't see what's so hard about searching the forums for "Adam + Eve + TE".
It's not that I'm interested in seeing this thread fail. But I am interested in not seeing this forum flooded with the same frequently asked questions as "Do TEs believe in the Bible?", "Do TEs believe in Adam and Eve" or "Are TEs really Christians?"

 

[Willtor]

As to my theology, I'm still learning. My views have been changing to come in line with the early Patriarchs (where early is defined up to about 400 AD). At someone's recommendation, I read the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and I've found them very consistent with (possibly even providing a basis for) the other things I've been reading that came later.

For more recent works, I've just begun Calvin's Institutes. I'm still at the beginning of Book I, but already he's quite compelling. I don't know quite how to classify myself (or if it is wise for me to do so), theologically, but if I had to identify myself with a group, I'd say Barthian Neo-Orthodox.

 

[Willtor]

Thank you Jase. Some of what you are saying is confusing to me. It appears however that there is a flurry of effort to make sure this thread does not get off the ground, and until all the hangers on decide to leave it alone long enough to establish some one on one discussion about the topic I am afraid it is going to be hard to get into.

Mallon, rmwilliams... I am serious here. If you do not want to talk specifically about your own beliefs, please leave the thread alone, okay? No one is forcing you to talk here. You have something you already posted that you want to repeat? Post the link TO THAT POST. I am not interested in wading through 5 years of dead threads.

I don't see what is so hard about just relating your own beliefs.

If you want to know what RMWilliamsII thinks, read his sig.

 

[Jase]

Thank you Jase. Some of what you are saying is confusing to me. It appears however that there is a flurry of effort to make sure this thread does not get off the ground, and until all the hangers on decide to leave it alone long enough to establish some one on one discussion about the topic I am afraid it is going to be hard to get into.

Perhaps you can point out what is confusing and I can clarify?

 

[Shane Roach]

And I'm fairly certain that most TEs here who have already answered your FAQ do not wish to repeat themselves yet again. rmwilliamsll did you a favour by patiently providing you with links to answers from previous TE posters. You may check those out in addition to reading any answers you may receive here. My point is that if you do not receive many replies, it is because this very question of yours has been addressed elsewhere recently.

And I don't see what's so hard about searching the forums for "Adam + Eve + TE".
It's not that I'm interested in seeing this thread fail. But I am interested in not seeing this forum flooded with the same frequently asked questions as "Do TEs believe in the Bible?", "Do TEs believe in Adam and Eve" or "Are TEs really Christians?"

Because it is not a discussion. I already looked at two of the threads, and no, they do nothing for me. Kindly, as I said, please show yourself to the door if you are not willing to discuss.

The idea that people like you do not enjoy repeating yourselves is really absurd. Most of your posts are repetitions that ingore what people say, including this one.

 

[Shane Roach]

I haven't really made a stance on Adam and Eve yet as I'm a fairly new Theistic evolutionist. I lean towards them existing, but not necessarily being the first humans. Merely the first spiritually aware ones. But I don't see sin as a tangible concept anyway. Sin is just a transgression against divine law. I don't quite see how sin itself can alter the universe, as many creationists claims it does without attributing some supernatural power to an abstract concept.

What does, "I don't see sin as a tangible concept" mean? What is the problem with attributing supernatural power to an abstract concept?

I'm not a universalist, but as of late i'm leaning away from the western fundamentalist view of Hell. The Gospels I hold to be literal, at least what is intended to be literal as I still think there is metaphor contained in them. Revelation is another tricky topic for me. I think it is the most metaphoric book in the Bible, and I think there are a lot of difficulties with it. Such as the way it portrays God, how it almost never became canonized and took 400 years for the Church to agree on its authenticity. How the person usually attributed to writing it would have been a 100 years old when he wrote it. How it has large similarities to the book of Daniel. There was a Jewish version of Revelation believed to have been written 25 years earlier that is more coherent than the current version, but mostly deals with the Roman Empire - not some future Apocalypse.

Revelation is a tough one. I'm still struggling with that one. I think the events in it seem rather unecessary and don't portray God in a very good light though.

Aside from the difficulties in the process of canonization, what exactly are the problems with Revelation? There are some verses in the Gospels that are about as hard core as anything in the Bible, OT or NT, aren't there?

 

[Jase]

What does, "I don't see sin as a tangible concept" mean? What is the problem with attributing supernatural power to an abstract concept?

Because sin is a transgression against divine law. If I lie, I have sinned. In order for sin to have physical ramifications on the entire universe, like cause asteroids to collide with the Earth, or cause all life on earth to decay, sin has to be like a virus that spreads. That would make it a physical concept, rather than an abstract concept. How can a transgression against divine law be a physical concept?

Aside from the difficulties in the process of canonization, what exactly are the problems with Revelation? There are some verses in the Gospels that are about as hard core as anything in the Bible, OT or NT, aren't there?

Well, as I said. There was a Jewish Revelation older than the one we have. It appears that the Church took the Jewish version and altered it to be more future apocalyptic, by using a lot of similarities from the Book of Daniel.

Revelation just seems to have a lot of connections to the time period - the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Empire. For example, the number of the beast, 666 in Hebrew numerology spells Nero Caesar.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Still, I have long been convinced that whatever the truth of creation is, it is not all that important to Christianity. The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?



i'll try to be as specific as possible then.
you can not distinguish my theology from the general conservative Presbyterian/Reformed consensus.
I fully believe in federal headship of Adam and Christ. I think Adam was a literal and historical man, sin came into the world with his disobedience to God's commands.


Are most theistic evolutionists also universalists, or do they deny literal interpretations of other books like the Revelation or even the Gospels?


i am certainly not a universalist, i am an orthodox Calvinist, fully persuaded that Jesus died for the elect only.


How do you shift gears from denying the first several chapters of Genesis to acknowledging the rest of it?

i understand Gen 1 as the prologue to the treaty of the Great King, a la Framework interpretation from Kline. Which is the only point i may differ with BB.Warfield and J.G.Machen with in theology since Kline wrote since both of those great men died.

the only thing i deny about Gen 1 is that it is a science and history textbook rather than a presentation of Creation as the great metaphor of God's workweek culminating in the Sabbath.

Perhaps the most conservative confession active in the modern Protestant Churches is the Westminster Confession of Faith, which except for the one line that Adam was the physical progenitor of all humanity i can subscribe to.

Like i said in my first message, my theology is indistinguishable from any YEC or OEC who likewise subscribes to the WCF.

 

[Willtor]

Still, I have long been convinced that whatever the truth of creation is, it is not all that important to Christianity. The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

First, I really think the doctrine of creation is quite important to Christianity. There are religions in which a god or gods are said to have emerged from nature or necessarily to be tied to nature in some way. Christianity denies this. By calling nature a part of creation, one is asserting that there is a Creator. God as Creator is an important aspect of Who God is, in Himself, and who we are as creatures.

Are most theistic evolutionists also universalists, or do they deny literal interpretations of other books like the Revelation or even the Gospels?

Not as far as I'm aware (to the Universalism question). AFAIK, most of us accept doctrine of Hell as sound. For literal interpretation of a narrative, it's one form of interpretation among many. In my understanding, the closest one probably gets to what we would think of as a literal, sequential sequence of events (that is meant to be understood as such) is probably the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

Revelation, I'm leaning Ammillenial because it is replete with doctrinal statements. This is consistent with the notion that, as Scripture, it is useful for teaching and preaching, and for the sake of all believers, not just those of the last generation.

How do you shift gears from denying the first several chapters of Genesis to acknowledging the rest of it?

As with most of the TEs with whom I've spoken on these Forums, I don't deny even the first several chapters of Genesis. I accept them as they are.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

The more I look at it though, the more I wonder what theistic evolutionists make of the rest of Genesis, and specifically the story of Adam and Eve and of how sin came into the world?

Here's my view.

I think the Eden account is similar to Ezekiel 16. Is the woman named Jerusalem in that chapter a real person or is she imaginary? The answer is neither. She is a representation of the nation Israel. Her story within that prophetic message is Israel's story. It is told more completely than a historical record could, since it also reveals God's involvement in events that historically could seem merely natural.

I think Genesis 2-4 is revealing the history of humanity the way Ezekiel 16 reveals Israel's history. I read both accounts the same way. Adam and his wife Eve are not individuals any more than the lady Jerusalem and her sisters Samaria and Sodom. They are far more than individuals. God places them in a paradise and provides for all their needs, just as he adopted the child Jerusalem and raised her in luxury. Adam and Eve's actions allegorically correspond to the actions of humanity toward God.

The serpent is not just a literal serpent: it represents pride, the temptation of selfish ambition, and ultimately Satan. So, when the serpent is cursed in Genesis 3:14-15, the curse is actually referring to far more than literal snakes -- it foreshadows the second Adam's ultimate defeat of Satan (Romans 16:20). Similarly, the trees are not literal trees any more than the ring and crown in Ezekiel 16:12 are merely literal. The tree of life represents God's sustaining, life-giving power (Revelation 2:7, 22:1-2), while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents godlike knowledge (Genesis 3:5).

Adam and Eve, representing fledgling humanity, disobey God by grasping for this knowledge that they are not ready for. As a result, they do gain some knowledge, but in the process lose their innocence. Their communion with God is broken. This is the advent of sin, and it is described more prosaically in Romans 1:18-32.

Relating this to prehistory, the most obvious trait distinguishing humans from other apes is the increase in brain size; the larger skull size naturally led to increased pain for women in childbirth (other factors, such as hip changes due to bipedalism and the level of cranial development at birth, also factor in). Early primates learned to use tools, making clubs, then spears, then arrows. We learned to use fire. As we gained knowledge, we became capable of violence exceeding any other beast.

God confronts Adam and Eve and reveals the consequences of their actions. They are banished from their paradise, no longer having access to the tree of life -- God's special sustaining power. Life will be hard as they move from gathering food in the garden to an agricultural lifestyle where for the first time weeds can be defined.

Their broken communion with God and each other is passed on in their children. The horticulturalist son kills his pastoralist brother. In short order the account goes on to describe the advent of cities (4:17), crafts (4:21) and metalworks (4:22), again compressing large-scale events into a story of a few individuals.

When the account is read this way, it is no less truthful than the account in Ezekiel 16. This approach is used even by most literalists when it comes to Genesis 3:14-15, but I don't think those verses are an aberration. When this approach is used for the entire account, it allows one to get at the themes and focus of the story instead of trying to manipulate science or history to accord with its surface details.