Sorry to drop in on this late, but just thought I'd respond to the points you raised, Pythons:
The difficulty I have in accepting T.E. as it's generally understood is the picture painted in my mind of Adam and Eve's "parents". For T.E. "theory" to be true some type of female ape-like hominid would have been chased down and bred by a dominant male ape-like hominid of the same species. I watch enough discovery channel to connect the dots and the picture I end up with is difficult, at best, to sync with the Christian faith.
I would think that God can do anything and if anything, some aspects of T.E. would elevate God in my view, not lower. In the end, whereas the creation of man is concerned the view that our first parents were the result of a beast being stump busted is at this point "another religion". There is no doubt that "Theological Evolution" is a fact and mans concept of God has evolved from an almost ape-like understanding to the full Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Have to say I'm not quite sure what theological evolution means or how it ties in with this, but one could argue that that's what happened once we evolved to a particular level, we became sentient, introspective - maybe at that stage we became aware of God as well.
Calypsis4 brings up a good fact that I will certainly look into that of "life does not generate from non-living matter. Darklite has posted much in this area and also has excellent points in favor of T.E. and it's a difficult subject to get ones mind around.
The law of biogenesis is only really true on certain scales, if you think about it. The individual atoms that make up our bodies aren't alive, but the whole clearly is. There has to have been a point where mechanisms operated to bring inanimate matter together to form simple replicating systems.
My suggestion is to find the most solid "proof" for both sides and put them against each other and if it comes down to a matter of faith stick with the one that elevates Christ the most.
Not a bad position to work from, but I suspect people's ideas about what elevates Christ and what does not will differ....
T.E. teaches that at Adam and Eve's conception God infused their respective soul ( like it happened for you and me ) therefore, since it's rejected in T.E. that God created Adam & Eve as fully grown adults both became "human" in the belly of a hominid animal that did not have a soul.
This somewhat ties in with my first point about evolving to a particular level to be aware of God, why is it necessary that there was a point where God actively infused a soul into us? Couldn't that just be representative of coming to a point where we became the first species to become self aware and aware of our maker?
As crude and horrific as this may sound it gets worse as the actual mechanics of conception defaults into a male animal blasting sperm into a female animal which in turn gives birth to Adam.
If Adam was the "first" and he didn't "evolve", his Mother was either an ape or type of ape-like "animal". This is my great difficulty in accepting T.E. as firstly this part of it just sounds (to me) so horrific and forgive me for saying it, Satanic.
I accept certain aspects of evolution as fact and believe God designed his creation the ability to mutate or adapt (evolve) to a variety of situations and have no problems whatsoever with this part of it ( like whales may have started out on land ) but whereas man is concerned I have a hard time accepting something without a soul gave birth to a human with one.
Perhaps I didn't say it right but this is what I mean.
I think you're not quite understanding the idea of how speciation works, it's not the case that two individual ape-like animals bred and out popped a human - speciation is much more gradual than that.
If two or more groups of animals (note, not individuals) become geographically isolated from each other, then eventually so many differences in their genes will occur due to different selective pressures that their genes will no longer be compatible for forming offspring. However, on the level of appearance the individuals from the two groups may well still look very similar indeed.
As an example, there are very interesting population dynamics in ring species:
Ring species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It contains a great example of some Arctic gulls, those physically close can hybridise, whereas those further away are less likely to. It also illustrates well the point that speciation is not exactly a discrete barrier, but rather a continuum of genetic variation.
So to return to your initial point: homo sapiens sapiens and the other apes arose from a divergence, most likely caused by some geographical isolation, and from there their intelligence, sentience etc was shaped by natural selection. Who exactly Adam and Eve were, well, I personally think they're more symbolic rather than literal. But if that's too much for you, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think they weren't the only humans created to begin with (you've got to wonder where the wives for Seth and Cain came from and how one family line can diversify outwards rather than ending up horribly inbred).
Maybe I've just addressed one question to spawn several others! But I think it's important to realise that Adam wouldn't be brought forth from an animal, as you describe it. He would have been brought forth from a population of similar individuals who were rapidly changing from the other creatures they diverged from.
