Here is my take on TE, presented as a set of assumptions then assertions. Feedback welcome.
Assumptions
a) the Bible is inerrant
b) The human genome is continuous with prior life on earth, and contains the marks of descent from earlier life forms (e.g. we are of common descent with the rest of earth's species}.
Assertions
1. Adam was a real person. Paul is making a case for imputation of Christ's righteousness. He gives as precedence Adam's sin being imputed to the human race. If there were no actual case of imputation regarding Adam, then Paul's illustration would have been of no benefit. For imputation to have actually happened, there must be a real person from whom sin is imputed, e.g. Adam.
2. The results of this imputation include at least physical death. Paul is illustrating from the facts known to all men when he says "death reigned from Adam until Moses." (Rom 5) Physical death, not spiritual, is apparent to all.
3. Full humans have eternal human spirits, unlike the rest of the creatures on earth (a basic Christian doctrine).
4. Adam had the first eternal spirit (I Cor. 15), and as such is the first to be made in the image of God. If eternal human spirits did not exist, and finally did, then there must have been a first. Adam is the best choice, of course.
5. Adam was selected from a group of anatomical humans that were subject to physical death, and did not have eternal spirits. (I would think most TEs would hold this) It is difficult to fathom what they must have been like -- intelligent, self-conscious, able to hold a conversation, but without that spark of the Divine (image of God). Perhaps Balaam's donkey (Num 22) can serve as an example of such a condition. It would not do justice to the narrative to hold that God simply gave the donkey a human voice. Self-consciousness seems evident in this non-eternal creature. This is an odd thing to consider, but we will have to consider matters like this soon enough. Surely the day is not far off when some godless person will grow a human brain and place it in a robot, or in the body of a different animal. Imago Dei is a gift, not the natural right of an intelligent life form.
And what if the pre-Adamites decided to be cruel? Wouldn't such call for eternal consequences, and require an eternal spirit? Non necessarily. The neuronal activity might look similar to ours, when we sin. But our neuronal activities are linked to our human spirit, which guarantees our eternal culpability if not pardoned. Neurons firing apart from the spirit are of no more significance than a wolf killing a whole flock of sheep. Or a computer with a lot of memory and CPU that may someday analyze its environment and decide to fire a weapon. If sin is not counted where there is no law, how much more is it not imputed when there is no spirit! There is no spirit for the Spirit to contend with, as He does in Gen 6.
6. Adam's spirit was in a state of perfection, e.g. innocence. Adam's body and DNA, however, were identical or similar to the anatomical humans from which he was drawn. As such, it was not immortal, but subject to death, given the passage of enough time. He had not eaten of the tree of life.
7. Adam's continued obedience at some point would have been rewarded by immortality in a state of innocence, for himself and his posterity. At this time God would have revamped his body, and his DNA, to be perfect, and not subject to physical death. His spirit would have been confirmed in righteousness, and unable to sin, like those in heaven now.
8. He failed the test. Therefore God allow his spirit to be corrupted. Instead of revamping Adam's body, He leaves it alone, meaning it would die like the anatomical humans from which he was selected.
9. All humans in the modern era have corrupt, eternal spirits. Now, what happened to the anatomical humans from which Adam came? I have three alternatives to suggest. 1) They were instantaneously given corrupt souls, as imputed from Adam, their representative. 2) They remained without a human spirit. But the following generation, that is, every human conceived after that time, was born with a corrupt spirit, by reason of imputation. 3) They and their children remained without a human spirit. Their descendents fizzled out, or, if they interbred with Adam's descendents, the resulting offspring inherited a corrupt spirit from Adam's side of the family.
These are certainly important matters. The Church took awhile to adjust to a heliocentric understanding. But they were much faster than we, whose task it is to adjust to the truth of evolution. It is now 50 years since Henry Morris published The Genesis Flood, and the Church shows no signs of shaking off the young-earth error any time soon. Meanwhile, the gospel, presented in the same breath as a 10,000 year-old young earth, seems irrelevant to an increasingly educated and information-rich civilization. The sin of the church in our generation has surely been to transgress this commandment: "You shall not set a stumbling block before the blind." Lev 19:14. May the next generation remove the block we have positioned before a world blindly groping, hands outstretched.
Assumptions
a) the Bible is inerrant
b) The human genome is continuous with prior life on earth, and contains the marks of descent from earlier life forms (e.g. we are of common descent with the rest of earth's species}.
Assertions
1. Adam was a real person. Paul is making a case for imputation of Christ's righteousness. He gives as precedence Adam's sin being imputed to the human race. If there were no actual case of imputation regarding Adam, then Paul's illustration would have been of no benefit. For imputation to have actually happened, there must be a real person from whom sin is imputed, e.g. Adam.
2. The results of this imputation include at least physical death. Paul is illustrating from the facts known to all men when he says "death reigned from Adam until Moses." (Rom 5) Physical death, not spiritual, is apparent to all.
3. Full humans have eternal human spirits, unlike the rest of the creatures on earth (a basic Christian doctrine).
4. Adam had the first eternal spirit (I Cor. 15), and as such is the first to be made in the image of God. If eternal human spirits did not exist, and finally did, then there must have been a first. Adam is the best choice, of course.
5. Adam was selected from a group of anatomical humans that were subject to physical death, and did not have eternal spirits. (I would think most TEs would hold this) It is difficult to fathom what they must have been like -- intelligent, self-conscious, able to hold a conversation, but without that spark of the Divine (image of God). Perhaps Balaam's donkey (Num 22) can serve as an example of such a condition. It would not do justice to the narrative to hold that God simply gave the donkey a human voice. Self-consciousness seems evident in this non-eternal creature. This is an odd thing to consider, but we will have to consider matters like this soon enough. Surely the day is not far off when some godless person will grow a human brain and place it in a robot, or in the body of a different animal. Imago Dei is a gift, not the natural right of an intelligent life form.
And what if the pre-Adamites decided to be cruel? Wouldn't such call for eternal consequences, and require an eternal spirit? Non necessarily. The neuronal activity might look similar to ours, when we sin. But our neuronal activities are linked to our human spirit, which guarantees our eternal culpability if not pardoned. Neurons firing apart from the spirit are of no more significance than a wolf killing a whole flock of sheep. Or a computer with a lot of memory and CPU that may someday analyze its environment and decide to fire a weapon. If sin is not counted where there is no law, how much more is it not imputed when there is no spirit! There is no spirit for the Spirit to contend with, as He does in Gen 6.
6. Adam's spirit was in a state of perfection, e.g. innocence. Adam's body and DNA, however, were identical or similar to the anatomical humans from which he was drawn. As such, it was not immortal, but subject to death, given the passage of enough time. He had not eaten of the tree of life.
7. Adam's continued obedience at some point would have been rewarded by immortality in a state of innocence, for himself and his posterity. At this time God would have revamped his body, and his DNA, to be perfect, and not subject to physical death. His spirit would have been confirmed in righteousness, and unable to sin, like those in heaven now.
8. He failed the test. Therefore God allow his spirit to be corrupted. Instead of revamping Adam's body, He leaves it alone, meaning it would die like the anatomical humans from which he was selected.
9. All humans in the modern era have corrupt, eternal spirits. Now, what happened to the anatomical humans from which Adam came? I have three alternatives to suggest. 1) They were instantaneously given corrupt souls, as imputed from Adam, their representative. 2) They remained without a human spirit. But the following generation, that is, every human conceived after that time, was born with a corrupt spirit, by reason of imputation. 3) They and their children remained without a human spirit. Their descendents fizzled out, or, if they interbred with Adam's descendents, the resulting offspring inherited a corrupt spirit from Adam's side of the family.
These are certainly important matters. The Church took awhile to adjust to a heliocentric understanding. But they were much faster than we, whose task it is to adjust to the truth of evolution. It is now 50 years since Henry Morris published The Genesis Flood, and the Church shows no signs of shaking off the young-earth error any time soon. Meanwhile, the gospel, presented in the same breath as a 10,000 year-old young earth, seems irrelevant to an increasingly educated and information-rich civilization. The sin of the church in our generation has surely been to transgress this commandment: "You shall not set a stumbling block before the blind." Lev 19:14. May the next generation remove the block we have positioned before a world blindly groping, hands outstretched.
