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This is my own speculative framework for reconciling the evidence for evolution with the biblical truth of an historical Adam and Eve. This is just a brief sketch of the position, I plan to greatly develop this view in a proper essay when I get the time.
First off, what does the science tell us about human origins? Anatomically modern homo sapien sapiens emerged approximately 150-200,000 years ago, the human population was never at any time less than a few thousand individuals, and there is such a thing as a chromosomal Adam and a mitochondrial Eve from whom all individuals are descended. As Dr. Craig has pointed out, there are indications these days that this "Adam" and "Eve" may have been contemporaneous. My framework operates on the presupposition of the truth of this premise but is not inextricably bound to it.
Now that we have the basic scientific premeses out of the way, we need to establish the basic theological framework upon which this model is based. The evolutionary creationism i hold to is grounded in the reformed doctrine, best elaborated in the Westminster confession, that God foreordains "whatsoever comes to pass". Extrapolated into the sciences, this would mean that nothing is truly "random" but may merely appear that way. Each and every "random" genetic variation and environmental contingency, the backbones of descent with modification by means of natural selection, have been predestined by the creator. So based on this theological framework, we can put forward a model of evolutionary creationism wherby God, by means of predestination and divine providence, brought about by natural processes the whole of the diversity of life on earth. This process was wholly guided by God in that each and every event, down to the most miniscule, was foreordained, and yet all was accomplished by means of natural processes which God himself authored and used as the means of his creative work. This model of evolutionary creationism is completely consistent with the scientific record, and will serve as the foundation for our forthcoming speculations concerning human origins.
Before we may properly put forth a model of human origins we must first establish a basic theological framework for understanding the relationship of God and man. The basic theological principle which we shall here employ is the principle of covenant relationship. God enters into relationship with man by means of covenants. Following the classical reformed tradition, we can understand the relationship of God with the first man, Adam, as a covenant of works whereby eternal life is promised on condition of perfect obedience, while death is solemnly threatened on condition of disobedience. This understanding of the first covenant between God and man is essential to understanding Paul's exposition of the gospel in the epistle to the Romans and, as such, is key to our Christian faith. Though Christians may differ on the precise nature of this first covenant, it should at least be clear that an historical Adam is necessary for such a covenant to have existed at all, and is further rendered necessary by Pauls covenantal comparison of Christ and Adam in the epistle to the Romans.
All of this being said, we must conclude that bible-believing Christians must affirm the existence of a literal Adam whom God entered into a covenant with. Note that this is not to say that the early chapters of Genesis are necessarily a literal chronological account of these primevil events. Now here we run into a real issue; how can the scientific evidence of evolution and population genetics be reconciled with the biblically necessary truth of a first man, Adam, from whom all modern humans are descended? Given that we have already described the basic scientific data that lays before us, as well as the necessary theological foundations, we may now construct a model of the historical Adam within the context of our modern scientific knowledge.
My first presupposition is that the nature of humanity is most fundamentally theological not biological. This is critically important to my argument, as i will argue that an anatomically modern homo sapien sapien is not necessarily human in the full and proper sense. Rather, what makes a human a human is the image of God. Now the bible declares that God is spirit, so it is logical to conclude that the image of God is none other than a spiritual nature. So we can define a human as a homo sapien sapien that possesses a spirit, or a spiritual nature. So a human is a composit of a biological nature and a spiritual nature, and if either is lacking it cannot be said to be truly or fully human. This is also, as an aside, why bodily resurrection is so central to the record of divine revelation. This physical/spiritual composite nature of man is the anthropological basis of my model.
Now we get into the gist of the model itself. I will grant the conclusions of evolutionary biology and population genetics that homo sapien sapiens evolved by means of descent with modification from a common primate anscestor. I will also grant that the homo sapien sapien population was never less than a few thousand individuals. So where does the historical Adam and Eve come in?
Taking an initial localized homo sapien sapien population of a few thousand, in the very distant past, it is conceivable that God, wishing to create man and enter into covenant with him, elected one male and one female out of this population to be the subjects of his covenant. This would be Adam and Eve. He chose these two individuals and supernaturally infused a spirit, or spiritual nature, within them. Thereby it can be properly said, as Genesis 1 declares, that he made them male and female in the image of God. Being made in the image of God, this pair is now truly human and fitting subjects for Gods covenant. All modern human beings are descended from this historical pair. Over the course of time, by Gods providence, those homo sapiens who did not descend from this pair were rendered extinct. I will further presuppose that this pair corresponds to chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, though this may not be strictly necessary for the validity of the model.
This model simultaneously and rationally affirms a literal Adam and Eve from whom all modern humans are descended, while also affirming the reality of human evolution and the base population models of population genetics. Nothing in this model should contradict any piece of genetic evidence, as all descendents of Adam and Eve would share genetic traits all the way down the evolutionary chain, while still in reality being descended from two individuals.
This is a rough sketch of my model, which i hope to refine and further develop. I would greatly appreciate thoughts and constructive criticism. Thank you.
I like the explanation in the Urantia revelation of 1955. Adam and Eve were incarnate celestials on an evolutionary world that evolved from a preveous life implantation. They were to be the worlds new visible spiritual rulers under the authority of our creator Son Michael, aka the subsequent incarnate Jesus of Nazareth. Adam and Eve were to replace the preveous, fallen administration, "The Prince of this world"This is my own speculative framework for reconciling the evidence for evolution with the biblical truth of an historical Adam and Eve. This is just a brief sketch of the position, I plan to greatly develop this view in a proper essay when I get the time.
First off, what does the science tell us about human origins? Anatomically modern homo sapien sapiens emerged approximately 150-200,000 years ago, the human population was never at any time less than a few thousand individuals, and there is such a thing as a chromosomal Adam and a mitochondrial Eve from whom all individuals are descended. As Dr. Craig has pointed out, there are indications these days that this "Adam" and "Eve" may have been contemporaneous. My framework operates on the presupposition of the truth of this premise but is not inextricably bound to it.
Now that we have the basic scientific premeses out of the way, we need to establish the basic theological framework upon which this model is based. The evolutionary creationism i hold to is grounded in the reformed doctrine, best elaborated in the Westminster confession, that God foreordains "whatsoever comes to pass". Extrapolated into the sciences, this would mean that nothing is truly "random" but may merely appear that way. Each and every "random" genetic variation and environmental contingency, the backbones of descent with modification by means of natural selection, have been predestined by the creator. So based on this theological framework, we can put forward a model of evolutionary creationism wherby God, by means of predestination and divine providence, brought about by natural processes the whole of the diversity of life on earth. This process was wholly guided by God in that each and every event, down to the most miniscule, was foreordained, and yet all was accomplished by means of natural processes which God himself authored and used as the means of his creative work. This model of evolutionary creationism is completely consistent with the scientific record, and will serve as the foundation for our forthcoming speculations concerning human origins.
Before we may properly put forth a model of human origins we must first establish a basic theological framework for understanding the relationship of God and man. The basic theological principle which we shall here employ is the principle of covenant relationship. God enters into relationship with man by means of covenants. Following the classical reformed tradition, we can understand the relationship of God with the first man, Adam, as a covenant of works whereby eternal life is promised on condition of perfect obedience, while death is solemnly threatened on condition of disobedience. This understanding of the first covenant between God and man is essential to understanding Paul's exposition of the gospel in the epistle to the Romans and, as such, is key to our Christian faith. Though Christians may differ on the precise nature of this first covenant, it should at least be clear that an historical Adam is necessary for such a covenant to have existed at all, and is further rendered necessary by Pauls covenantal comparison of Christ and Adam in the epistle to the Romans.
All of this being said, we must conclude that bible-believing Christians must affirm the existence of a literal Adam whom God entered into a covenant with. Note that this is not to say that the early chapters of Genesis are necessarily a literal chronological account of these primevil events. Now here we run into a real issue; how can the scientific evidence of evolution and population genetics be reconciled with the biblically necessary truth of a first man, Adam, from whom all modern humans are descended? Given that we have already described the basic scientific data that lays before us, as well as the necessary theological foundations, we may now construct a model of the historical Adam within the context of our modern scientific knowledge.
My first presupposition is that the nature of humanity is most fundamentally theological not biological. This is critically important to my argument, as i will argue that an anatomically modern homo sapien sapien is not necessarily human in the full and proper sense. Rather, what makes a human a human is the image of God. Now the bible declares that God is spirit, so it is logical to conclude that the image of God is none other than a spiritual nature. So we can define a human as a homo sapien sapien that possesses a spirit, or a spiritual nature. So a human is a composit of a biological nature and a spiritual nature, and if either is lacking it cannot be said to be truly or fully human. This is also, as an aside, why bodily resurrection is so central to the record of divine revelation. This physical/spiritual composite nature of man is the anthropological basis of my model.
Now we get into the gist of the model itself. I will grant the conclusions of evolutionary biology and population genetics that homo sapien sapiens evolved by means of descent with modification from a common primate anscestor. I will also grant that the homo sapien sapien population was never less than a few thousand individuals. So where does the historical Adam and Eve come in?
Taking an initial localized homo sapien sapien population of a few thousand, in the very distant past, it is conceivable that God, wishing to create man and enter into covenant with him, elected one male and one female out of this population to be the subjects of his covenant. This would be Adam and Eve. He chose these two individuals and supernaturally infused a spirit, or spiritual nature, within them. Thereby it can be properly said, as Genesis 1 declares, that he made them male and female in the image of God. Being made in the image of God, this pair is now truly human and fitting subjects for Gods covenant. All modern human beings are descended from this historical pair. Over the course of time, by Gods providence, those homo sapiens who did not descend from this pair were rendered extinct. I will further presuppose that this pair corresponds to chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, though this may not be strictly necessary for the validity of the model.
This model simultaneously and rationally affirms a literal Adam and Eve from whom all modern humans are descended, while also affirming the reality of human evolution and the base population models of population genetics. Nothing in this model should contradict any piece of genetic evidence, as all descendents of Adam and Eve would share genetic traits all the way down the evolutionary chain, while still in reality being descended from two individuals.
This is a rough sketch of my model, which i hope to refine and further develop. I would greatly appreciate thoughts and constructive criticism. Thank you.
No it does not. The interpretation of the records by secular humanists come up with evolution as an answer. There are Creation Scientists that give biblical accounts for those supposed records. Russel Humphreys gives a theory on how starlight and time could be made into long time with a young Earth. Not that I need that answer, because God can create the appearance of age.I'm always puzzled why anyone bothers to cite this as a reason to deny the science. Nobody said God needed anything; but the record shows (the record in the stars, the rocks, and the genomes) that He did use evolution.
No it does not. The interpretation of the records by secular humanists come up with evolution as an answer. There are Creation Scientists that give biblical accounts for those supposed records. Russel Humphreys gives a theory on how starlight and time could be made into long time with a young Earth. Not that I need that answer, because God can create the appearance of age.
No one believed in theistic evolution until Darwin became popular with the secular world. Then theologians to accommodate Darwin at the turn of the 20th century came up with the Gap Theory eisegetically reading between the lines of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
I am always puzzled why so many Christians believe the world instead of God.
Yes, as I had mentioned I do not accept that the early chapters of Genesis explain events in a literal way.
I dont know why this time dilation talk has become so prominant amongst young earthers. There just isnt any evidence for such a thing, and its pure nonsense. This idea that time on earth has passed extraordinarily slow, while the rest of the universe regularly operates?
Then to cover up the ignorance, the statement is followed up with the fine print qualifier "not that i need answers because God can create the appearance of age" aka in case I have no idea what im talking about, here is my backup.
So you look at the backup and you just have to ask yourself, if youre walking around at sunday service, and you see an elderly person of 80+ years old, does it make more sense to you that he is in fact old, or do you think everything was just made yesterday with the "perception" that it is old? The simple answer is that it is old. No need for bizarre complex time dilation ideas for which there is no evidence. Just nice and simple, it is old.
And lastly, there are many creation evolutionists, and in fact we appear to be in the majority now, so this isnt some outside secular humanist attack. It is your own brothers and sisters in Christ just trying to show you what we have learned about Gods creation since the 1800s.
No I wouldnt put it that way. I think itd be more accurate to call them "hominids", not lesser human beings. Like I said the demarcation line between Adam and Eve and the hominids from which they emerged biologically is spirit. I am claiming that it is likely Adam and Eve were contemporaneous with non-human hominids.Are you by this suggesting that there were Adam and Eve, the first humans, alongside lesser human beings?
Yet you yourself trust and use that "wisdom of the world" (science) everytime you drive your car or turn on your computer. Where do you think the technology you rely upon comes from? That's right, science. What about the medical knowledge and techology that preserves life? Oh, yeah, science. In fact a huge chunk of that medical science is grounded in evolutionary biology.Again, I am astonished by the number of Christians who put more stock in the wisdom of the world instead of God.
Well, this statement says it all. If you are not going to take the Genesis account in a literal way.....you might as well throw it all out and believe the standard evolutionary tale.
Why do we need another version of an explanation of how both creation and the evolution are true?
Pick a side and get off the fence....... Either the bible is the truth or man's idea of how we got here is true......stop spinning everything and trying to make man's imperfect wisdom mesh with God's perfect truth.
If you cannot accept that God made us, in His Image by forming Adam, breathing His own breath into him and then, later, making Eve from one of Adam's ribs..........then don't.... I don't care......
Go ahead and believe we came from apes.... if you sleep better, knowing that you now make a bunch of egg heads in white coats feel better....and... you don't make evolutionists lose their minds..... go ahead.
As for me:
God has the capability to do it just as He told us He did it......I will hold that in the end, when all truth comes out.... that, in fact, is the way it happened.....
I did not want to explain Humphrey's explanation as it took a whole book to explain it. The issue of creating something with age is biblical. God did not make Adam and Eve as infants, but they were fully mature adults.
1Co_3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
Again, I am astonished by the number of Christians who put more stock in the wisdom of the world instead of God.
2 Peter 3:8
This verse suggests a day to God is like 1000 years. This doesn't necessarily mean that a day to God is always exactly 1000 years.
2 Peter 3:8
This verse suggests a day to God is like 1000 years. This doesn't necessarily mean that a day to God is always exactly 1000 years.
Your stated view here conflicts directly with all Scripture ,
mainly in even considering as if mankind's "minds and the ability to reason" could result in anything good - directly contrary to what YHWH says in His Word - His Perfect Word.
You speak as if telomeres were bad for you. They prevent tumors, because cells that start to grow uncontrollably die off when the telomeres are used up in the cell division process. Many a nascent cancer is stopped in its tracks by this means.
Yet you yourself trust and use that "wisdom of the world" (science) everytime you drive your car or turn on your computer. Where do you think the technology you rely upon comes from? That's right, science. What about the medical knowledge and techology that preserves life? Oh, yeah, science. In fact a huge chunk of that medical science is grounded in evolutionary biology.
So what youre saying is that you trust science in many different areas every day of your life, but refuse to when it contradicts your narrow literalist interpretation of certain biblical texts. Im sorry but "creation science" is not science. All its claims and models have been soundly and repeatedly refuted by real scientists. You dont try to forecefit data into a preconceived model and call that science. Young earth creationism stems either from ignorance in the vast majority of cases, or from outright intellectual dishonestly, a proverbial burying of ones head in the sand.
Do you honestly believe so called "flood geology" was abandoned by scientists in the 19th century because of some evil conspiracy? I mean come on, most of the geologists studying it were Christians and most of them assumed a global flood and actually went looking for it. You know why "flood geology" is rejeced? Because it is demonstrably untrue, the data in GOD'S CREATION is abundantly clear that the earth has been around for billions of years and has gone through countless epochs of geological change.
Maybe, just maybe, a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis 1 - 11 is unwarranted. Its not as if this persoective is absent from church history. Augustine and others saw it this way. The Roman Catholic Church has no problem embracing science. Yet for some reason we protestants are having a hard time with this. It boggles my mind.
You answered your own question. Because creationists believe that Genesis is the literal truth and you accept evolution because you believe it is an allegory.I don't understand why creationists insist that a belief in evolution is contradictory to a belief in God's Word.
I believe Genesis is an allegory written for a primitive society. I do, however, accept the underlying lesson from Genesis which is that God created the universe. More important, I believe in the salvation offered by Jesus Christ
I think part of the real problem is that evolution doesn't need to be reconciled, it needs and deserves to be mocked, relentlessly.
It starts out with a guess that there was just some dense speck of matter that poofed itself into a nothingness then nothing acted on it and it blew up. It doesn't get any more logical from there. For some reason some of the matter collected in certain areas and started collecting and decided to spin. Some of those spit out other matter which also collected and started spinning themselves. Then somehow, on a ball of sterilized rock, there came forth the interaction of chemicals, and *POOF* magically, goo life began. Eventually, the goo became monkeys and those monkeys became us. After all, we are 98% genetically identical to monkeys, or so we're told. What we aren't told is that's 98% only if one ignores a large percentage of both human and monkey DNA and compares only a subset (in other words, another lie).
God doesn't need a matter speck to create. He spoke the loaves and fishes into existance to feed the masses, just as He spoke the heavens and the earth into existance. Evolution says no.
He says the earth was made before the sun and stars. Evolution says no.
He says the plants and trees were made before the sun. Evolution says no.
He says the animals were formed out of the dust of the ground. Evolution says no.
He says the first man was made fully fomed out of the dust of the ground. Evolution says no.
He says the first woman was formed out of the rib of the fully formed man. Evolution says no.
Let's face it, not only is it completely absurd, it's an idea designed to contradict God's word directly. It cannot be observed or replicated. It can only be inferred and then assumed to be accurate. In other words, taken on faith. It's a religion, and you can't serve both.
As Paul states, "Let God be true and every man a liar".
Evolution is not designed to contradict God's Word. I accept the underlying truth of Genesis - that God created the universe. I do read Genesis as allegory and believe in evolution, the big bang, etc. I accept the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ. I am a Christian, as you are.
What I do know is that my faith faltered when I thought a literal interpretation was required to be a true Christian. Not only does this contradict observable evidence (of evolution, cosmology, etc), but there are internal inconsistencies in the story. In Genesis 1, God creates mankind (adam) on day 6, after plants, animals, etc. In Genesis 2, God creates man before He creates plants. In Genesis 6, God instructs Noah to take 2 of every kind of animal, male and female. In Genesis 7, God instructs Noah to take 7 pairs of all clean animals and birds and 1 pair of each unclean animal.
With study, the Holy Spirit led me to understand that these stories can be understood as allegories. They teach true lessons even if they are not literally true. As a result, my faith has been strengthened.
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