Hi everyone.
At the outset, I would like to point out that these are questions addressed to people who are convinced, as I am, that evolution is a fact and that God used it to create the universe and life. This is not a discussion of the veracity of evolution, as this issue is already covered in (too) many other threads. If you believe that evolution over billions of years did not happen, that's fine. That belief alone does not make you a better or worse Christian. It's just not the topic of this discussion, and if anyone wants to hear arguments against the concept of evolution then he can look at other posts.
Secondly, it is possible that some questions have been answered in whole or in part in other threads. If so that's great, but there is simply so much written on this forum that I am not able to find and read all the information relevant to me. If someone would like to provide answers in his own words that's very good, because after all, the forum is for expressing one's own thoughts. But I will also not be offended if someone gives me links to other statements, names of articles or books or videos that better explain the issues raised here.
After all, when I look at my post like this, I asked a lot of questions
Of course, I don't require an answer to every single one of them, but I mainly care about answering the following 4 questions:
1. How do we reconcile God's intention for mankind, original sin, and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ with evolution?
2. What can we learn from the history of life on Earth? What does evolution tell us about God's attributes and intentions?
3. Where does the man for whom Christ gave his life begin? Why does the Bible seem so unclear on this issue?
4. How do we know which parts of the Bible should be interpreted literally and which symbolically? Can we tell something about God's attributes and intentions based on the metaphorical story.
The Bible says that God created man - male and female - and placed them in the Garden of Eden. He desired our welfare. He wanted people to be satisfied with their lives - to have their basic needs met such as food, health, protection from violence, companionship, and to worship, obey and devote themselves to him. Man was supposed to transform the entire Earth into one great garden of Eden, but thanks to his perfection and God's blessing, he would not suffer while performing this task. Unfortunately, man, at Satan's instigation, rebelled by breaking God's prohibition and decided that he wanted to decide for himself what was good and what was evil. Therefore, God banished him from the garden, depriving him of the opportunity to eat from the tree of life and perfection. Adam and Eve had no children before the rebellion, so we all inherited their sin. God foresaw how difficult and painful man's life would be, which is not to say that He intended it from the beginning. His intention was completely different and He did not abandon it. He decided, no doubt with the consent of the person concerned himself, that He would send a Messiah who would correct the error of our forefathers, and in this way people would return to their original state - they would live as Adam and Eve lived before they sinned, and continue God's intention to transform the planet (Revelation 21:1-5)
Everything God did from the expulsion from the Garden of Eden served precisely to prepare the place for the activity of Jesus Christ, who through his death will save mankind. And he succeeded in fulfilling his mission - by remaining faithful to God, which Adam failed to do, he paid the ransom with his life. (Romans 5:12-21).
But what is the history of the Earth, life and humans? The Earth began to take shape billions of years after the Big Bang. Initially it was a fireball bombarded by meteorites, which collided and mostly absorbed another planet. The debris from that planet formed a moon, whose gravity strongly affected Earth, although it began to weaken as it moved a few centimeters away each year. Only after hundreds of millions of years did the Earth assume a form on which life became possible. Of course, rocks and chemical processes do not feel or think. I don't see anything contradictory to the Bible that the Earth was formed in such a way. I am persuaded by John Walton's argument that the phrase "in the beginning" refers to the beginning of God's action in the world, not the material beginning of the Universe. Sure, it raises the question of at what point God decided that it was on this very planet that He would create someone "in His image and likeness" (Genesis 1: 26), but this is a purely theoretical question, and one that no one seems to know the answer to. I'm more puzzled by questions that concern living beings, which are, to a lesser or greater degree, sentient and reasoning. For example, why exactly did God choose the Earth? For most of my life, I was convinced that it was the only planet with water and capable of supporting life. But I learned that not only is this not the case, but there are planets that are much better places to live. So why Earth and not another, better planet? Could it be that at the time of God's decision, it was Earth that was the most optimal place for the fulfillment of God's intentions, i.e. for the course of evolution that would eventually lead to the creation of man? Or were other planets already occupied? If so, are there other "images of God" on other planets? And how do they live? Is Jesus a space traveler who roams the planets and saves the people there?
Ok, I've strayed terribly from the main thread, although of course these questions also connect to some extent to the main question. In any case, I do not think that the existence of other life forms on other planets, even similar to humans, contradicts Scripture. Nor do I think that evolution in itself contradicts the existence of God. It seems to me to make much more sense that changes occur gradually than if God were to create the entire plan of the Universe with the smallest details in one blink of an eye and at the same time put it into practice. I agree with Pope Francis that "God is not a wizard with a magic wand." After all, doesn't God have the right to enjoy the process of creation just as we enjoy creating cities in City Skylines or developing the Sims? Where would be the joy if the creators of these games simply provided us with finished cities to look at or a fully developed Sims family that lacks nothing? However, such an analogy is inaccurate, because it ignores the issue of the suffering of living beings.
So, after hundreds of millions of years, we have the first cells, which in time merge into multicellular organisms. And after almost 4 billion years we have the first creatures that, in my opinion, are worthy to be concerned about their fate. These creatures live, die and produce offspring. New species are created, and old species die out. And so life goes on for hundreds of millions of years.
However, where there is life, there is also suffering and death. Animals suffer and die due to aggression from other animals, disease, parasites, starvation, cold, overheating, natural disasters, or accidents. Often, representatives of even one species compete with each other in a brutal way, and the victory of one means the death of another (for example, a chick with brighter plumage attracts the attention of its parent and gets food, while the one with darker plumage dies of starvation). In addition, from time to time there are mass extinctions, which cause the extinction of even most species. Of course, the history of life cannot be reduced only to an uninterrupted string of torment and pain. Animals also experience good moments, but this does not change the fact that suffering is inherent in life. Why does God allow living and sentient beings to suffer and die without any purpose for hundreds of millions of years? Are living beings to God what Sims are to us?
Let's turn to the history of man, or ourselves. It is easy for us to point to two extremes: ourselves and the gorilla and say "I am the image of God, and that one is an animal," but after all, the history of man is not so clear. At what point in history does a person begin to hope for salvation?
We know that human evolution is not a "march of progress," but more of a "parade of freaks." It wasn't that two monkeys had a baby that was completely different from them and that we could call human. The changes occurred so gradually that each child was almost identical to the parents - the difference was even imperceptible. Such imperceptible differences accumulated, and it was only after hundreds of thousands of years that it was possible to see a clear difference between a given individual and its great-grandparent. Nor did the changes occur linearly - it wasn't that each successive individual became more and more human and less and less ape. Due to chance, interbreeding and unfavorable environmental changes, human characteristics could disappear and, for example, subsequent generations could possess fewer typically human traits than their predecessors. The general trend observed from the perspective of millions of years, however, was that more and more individuals emerged that increasingly resembled humans in both physique and abilities.
I wonder what it will look like at the Last Judgment? Will Jesus call one of these first people and say: " you didn't have a chance to meet me, so I'm giving you a chance to recognize me as your Savior, because I also died for your sins. But not for the sins of your parents, because they were some monkeys, and animals cannot sin or be redeemed. And not for the sins of your great-great-grandchild, because he degenerated a bit and that too was a monkey. But for the fact that from your 15th generation, they're all humans"?
Ok, so we move on to the question of individuals who indisputably possess characteristics that distinguish them from other ape/human species. Are typical representatives of Neanderthals humans or apes? What about the Denisovans? What about homo naledi? What about homo floresiensis? What about other as yet undiscovered individuals? What about the children from the unions of homo sapiens with Neanderthals/Denisovans? What about less evolved hominids? Will Lucy be saved, because I kind of liked her?
I don't expect anyone to have specific answers to each of these questions, because it would be absurd to claim that based on some mathematical calculation of typically human traits one can determine who will be saved, e.g., if someone is 90% homo sapiens (whatever that resemblance would be) then yes, and if he is 89% then no.
I'm more wondering if anything can be said on this subject that has any foundation? Or is the mere similarity in behavior and appearance between Denisovans/Neanderthals and humans a pretty strong foundation in itself? If so, that's pretty optimistic, but still, as we go back in time, the similarity between homo sapiens and hominids is diminishing more and more.
And so we come to the issue of original sin. It is with it that the Bible explains the current state of mankind. However, when and by whom was it committed? Some claim that Adam and Eve were created independently of other humans and placed in the Garden of Eden. However, around 4000 BC on there were already the first cultures/civilizations with their own armies. So if Adam and Eve were viable individuals then how would the expansion of the Garden of Eden have been? Were Adam and his descendants supposed to conquer these countries militarily?
And what role did this couple realistically play after the exile? Eve was called "the mother of all living" (Genesis 3: 20), but even if her offspring were exceptionally fertile and mobile she certainly could not have been the mother of those living before her or those living in the Americas or Australia. Besides, it would still take a long time before at least one Eve gene was found in every inhabitant of Africa, Europe and Asia.
After all, if it was only Adam and Eve who committed the sin then why do other people suffer? And did Christ die only for the descendants of this couple?
I know that even without original sin we would need redemption, because "there is not a righteous man on earth who [always] does good and never sins" (Koh 7:20). However, this does not change the fact that the Bible teaches two types of sin: that resulting from our will and original sin. However, looking at the history of mankind, did something like original sin affecting all of mankind even occur?
