Where Did Humans Come From?

[JAL]

Science has yet to establish that the earth produced life, but we do have God's word on it, so I'm confident that it did. And of course, speciation is an observed fact. So you're definitely wrong about that. Perhaps you don't know what "macroevolution" means. What do you think it means?

Regardless of whether my terminology is precise, I just hoped my opinion might be clear enough (perhaps too much to hope for, admittedly). Even though God designed DNA to be highly adaptable (thus allowing micro-evolution), I don't believe it's sufficiently adaptable to have evolved, from a simple life form, into the full myriad of species seen in the fossil record or visible today. And of course I don't believe that abiogenesis happened or, if it happened in some sense, it required sufficient divine intervention to merit the description "creation".

To summarize: I don't think I need to be fluent in the terminology to declare myself an OEC.

 

[BobRyan]

No 6 literal days does not allow for millions of years, ignoring the plane meaning of scripture because of a presupposition does that.

Amen - you have stated the obvious well -- I hope we can all see that.

because these guys certainly do see it:

Atheists often don't mind "admitting" to what the Bible says - they simply reject the idea that what it says is actually true. As in rejecting the virgin birth, the bodily ascension of Christ, the miracles of the bible and in this example they freely admit to what the Bible says - while rejecting it as 'truth'.


Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:


‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’



My Comment: And that poses a problem for Christians who need the bible to "say something else"

 

[JAL]

Yes - but that is not what we see in Ex 20:11




There is no "God labors and suffers for six days" in Genesis or in Exodus 20

It is an entertaining insert - but not compelling as it would be had the text actually said it.

Our God is the Great Creator and He enjoys the work of His hands - His vocation. Just as many people today enjoy their vocation rather than hating it or suffering it.

See post 299.
Again, be consistent. There is only one viable definition of merit. The cross merits no praise without labor/suffering.

 

[BobRyan]

This response cuts both ways, right? Paraphrasing your words: The language of Genesis 1 tends to strike the reader as very non-literal.

only if the reader regards terms like 'evening' and "morning" and "one day" as too difficult to view as literal -- which apparently the following scholars do not regard such "not literal" suggestions as being believable.

Atheists often don't mind "admitting" to what the Bible says - they simply reject the idea that what it says is actually true. As in rejecting the virgin birth, the bodily ascension of Christ, the miracles of the bible and in this example they freely admit to what the Bible says - while rejecting it as 'truth'.


Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:


‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’



My Comment: And that poses a problem for Christians who need the bible to "say something else"

 

[The Barbarian]

Even though God designed DNA to be highly adaptable (thus allowing micro-evolution), I don't believe it's sufficiently adaptable to have evolved, from a simple life form, into the full myriad of species seen in the fossil record or visible today.

That's the annoying thing about reality; it doesn't care what we think.

And of course I don't believe that abiogenesis happened

God says it did. I believe Him.

or, if it happened in some sense, it required sufficient divine intervention to merit the description "creation".

He made the universe with the capability of producing life. It works exactly as He created it to work.

 

[JAL]

There is no "God labors and suffers for six days" in Genesis or in Exodus 20

Then creation merits no praise. (Recall the cross as an example).

As noted early in this thread, we've been indoctrinated into a Greek concept of God (influenced not by Greek religion but the Greek philosophical concepts of Plato and his generations of students). There are three possible versions of God's original state of knowledge:

...(1) Infinite, immutable knowledge. This is the Platonic version associated with DDS (Doctrine of Divine Simplicity). Problems:
...(A) it is incoherent because infinity is not a real/specific number
...(B) an immutable God cannot become man.

...(2) God originally had a finite amount of knowledge (e.g. He knew a finite number of languages) and then learned more along the way. Problem here is inconceivability - why did He start with THIS particular set of data/knowledge as opposed to some other set?

....(3) God began with ZERO knowledge and had to learn EVERYTHING by labor/suffering. This version of God both merits praise and is fully coherent. This is MY position. But then, who is this Yahweh and how is it He began without any knowledge? You can read my definition of Yahweh at post 15 on another thread.

 

[BNR32FAN]

How do you have the coming of sunrise with no sun to have it? You know I’m right; you're just too stubborn to admit it.

Oh congratulations you just picked out of all those definitions the only one that can’t possibly apply to that situation. How about the rest of them like the break of day, the end of night, the coming of daylight, or the beginning of day? You just want to sweep those under the rug because they prove you wrong? This just shows that you can’t even be honest enough to admit when your wrong which is fine because your only discrediting yourself and showing everyone here your true intentions. That your pride is more important than your integrity.

 

[JAL]

That's the annoying thing about reality; it doesn't care what we think.



God says it did. I believe Him.



He made the universe with the capability of producing life. It works exactly as He created it to work.

Since I try to be open-minded on these issues, I'm not really insisting that evolutionists are wrong. As you've indicated, there is certainly biblical support for your position. I'm just inclined to feel more convinced by the biblical data supporting my position, like Romans 1:18-20 as discussed earlier.

 

[The Barbarian]

Oh congratulations you just picked out of all those definitions the only one that can’t possibly apply to that situation.

As you see, "morning" is sunrise. It's not "big light in the sky." No point in denial.

 

[BNR32FAN]

As you see, "morning" is sunrise. It's not "big light in the sky." No point in denial.

Yeah just keep on discrediting yourself, everyone can see the evidence for themselves in the discussion.

 

[The Barbarian]

Yeah just keep on discrediting yourself,

Run out of excuses, um? Everyone can see the evidence for themselves in the discussion.

 

[The Barbarian]

Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:


‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’

Well, let's take a look...
Allegorical interpretations of Genesis - Wikipedia

Sorry. He's wrong.

 

[Tolworth John]

Scripture deems Yahweh WORTHY of the things praised for. He MERITS this praise. As stated, there is only possible definition of merit. When you dis-acknowledge this, you classify Him as a lazy and unaccomplished sloth who demands praise for things that He did not work for.

the only way I can understand this is that you are acknowledging the work God put into creation and are denouncing the idea of a lazy God who lets nature take it place in random chaotic evolution.

Good to see you are supporting a Creator God and not evolution.

 

[JAL]

Well, let's take a look...
Allegorical interpretations of Genesis - Wikipedia

Sorry. He's wrong.

The Wikipedia article had a lot of tedious quotes - I didn't try to follow it all - but does seem to construe the figurative reading as fairly popular historically. Still, I think @BobRyan makes a good point at Exodus 20:11. After all, Yahweh was speaking out loud and seems to say, "Work six days in your week even as I worked six days in my week." The force of His command seems blunted if He never did so. Earlier you responded:

Could you show us that if the text somewhere repeats a figurative text, that converts it to a literal text? How do you figure that?

Obviously that's not a fair response because it assumes what is in debate. And it wasn't MERELY a duplication/repetition of the original text, at least not necessarily, since here it is Yahweh's personal testimony about Himself as He speaks out loud.

I'm not saying Exodus 20:11 is decisive - but I think it surely lends some credibility to literalism.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

I was curious as to how divided posters are on this topic. As a former Catholic, now Lutheran (who is still unsure if I'm in the right church), I learned from the writings of (and some communication via email with) Edward Feser that humans may have started as part of a population of hominids but that God gave Adam and Eve souls, making them human. Then, their offspring interbred with these other hominids and so on.

I'm probably oversimplifying Feser's theory, and it's been a long time since I'd read it, but what are your thoughts on this idea?

Or do you believe we came from Adam and Eve, whose children interbred with one another and so on?

Other theories?

Well, allow me to provide a further example of how divided these Christian views are on human origins: There are some, myself included, who don't believe we have souls. This view is not without precedent, especially among academic Bible scholars. It is even found in Reformed circles, such as G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Man - The Image of God (1957; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984). In short, the biblical view of man is not dualistic but holistic. (I often say, "I don't have a soul, I am a soul.") The idea that man is comprised of an immaterial soul inhabiting a material body is a product of ancient Greece and found in the writings of Plato; it was also prevalent in Gnosticism. Scripture paints a different picture, with an emphasis not an immortal soul but a bodily resurrection. For more on this, see Lynn R. Baker, "Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist?" Faith and Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 4 (1995): 489-504.

So, my thoughts? I would disagree with Feser, that God gave souls to Adam and Eve. If we assume that human evolution is true and that humans have souls, then somewhere along the way God must have given us souls and it makes sense to suppose it was with Adam and Eve. (It is a distinctly Catholic idea that humans evolved and the soul was added in a separate creative act.) But here is something to consider: If humans don't have souls, then we don't have to figure out when we got them. What makes us unique is not that we have an immaterial soul (and animals do not) but that we alone were made in the image of God. (For more on what that looks like, I would recommend J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005). He argues for a royal-functional interpretation of imago Dei with a cultic-priestly motif.)

I don't believe that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve genetically, but S. Joshua Swamidass makes a compelling argument that we're all descended from them genealogically—an argument under which they need not be the first humans. On his view, they could have been specially created de novo by God as mature adults, as many believe, or they could have been born and raised like everyone else. Either scenario works and he leaves that question open, but the point is that in either case the earth was populated by lots of humans at the time. So, yes, Adam's children married other folk (i.e., unrelated), like Cain in the land of Nod. In other words, these "other hominids" were entirely human (Homo sapiens). For more, see S. Joshua Swamidass, The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019). As for my own biblical world-view, there is no requirement under a Reformed covenant theology that they be the first humans, only that Adam was our federal head in whom we are in covenant relation to God (as covenant-breakers or sinners). Thus marked the dawn of redemptive history, wherein divine light splashed into the world after nearly 14 billion years of natural history.

If you are interested in my view, feel free to ask me questions but I would highly recommend Denis R. Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Monarch, 2014), a book which describes this evolutionary creationist perspective the best (and compares it to "other theories").

Science is very clear in its belief that there was never a human bottle neck of two people.

Just to add clarity to this statement, science is clear that there was no such extreme bottleneck within the last 500,000 years. If there was a single-couple origin more than half a million years ago, science would be incapable of ruling that out because human genetic variability would look the same in either case. See Ola Hossjer and Ann Gauger, "A Single-Couple Human Origin Is Possible," BIO-Complexity 2019 (1): 1-20.

 

[JAL]

There are some, myself included, who don't believe we have souls. This view is not without precedent, especially among academic Bible scholars. It is even found in Reformed circles, such as G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Man - The Image of God (1957; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984). In short, the biblical view of man is not dualistic but holistic. (I often say, "I don't have a soul, I am a soul.") The idea that man is comprised of an immaterial soul inhabiting a material body is a product of ancient Greece and found in the writings of Plato; it was also prevalent in Gnosticism. Scripture paints a different picture, with an emphasis not an immortal soul but a bodily resurrection. For more on this, see Lynn R. Baker, "Need a Christian Be a Mind/Body Dualist?" Faith and Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 4 (1995): 489-504.

I am thrilled to see you rightly tracing immaterial soul/spirit to Plato's hollow Greek philosophy - many Christians are still unaware of that origin. Still, I've heard that the biblical case for souls is reasonably solid (viz. Jesus threatening to throw both your soul and body in hell). I myself believe in a tangible soul removeable from the body.

How do you resolve the reductionist issue? I mean, consider a dead particle of matter. Accelerate it as much as you want. Then decelerate it as much as you want. Redirect it any direction you want. When all is said and done, what do you end up with? A dead particle, right? So how do you get consciousness out of all this? For me, I am a monistic materialist committed to a non-reductionistic view of matter: ALL matter is innately sentient but most of it is negligibly so and is thus, for all practical purposes, completely dead.

 

[The Barbarian]

Could you show us that if the text somewhere repeats a figurative text, that converts it to a literal text? How do you figure that?

Obviously that's not a fair response because it assumes what is in debate.

Your assumption is that if it's repeated elsewhere it can't be figurative. Can you support that assumption with a reasonable argument?

 

[The Barbarian]

For me, I am a monistic materialist committed to a non-reductionistic view of matter: ALL matter is innately sentient but most of it is negligibly so and is thus, for all practical purposes, completely dead.

As a very wise man once wrote, the soul is not merely an epiphenomenon of the mind. But that could be one of the things it is.

 

[The Barbarian]

the only way I can understand this is that you are acknowledging the work God put into creation and are denouncing the idea of a lazy God who lets nature take it place in random chaotic evolution.

Even many anti-Darwinians are aware that is a complete misrepresentation of the way evolution works. There is order in chaos, BTW. God doesn't "let" nature take place; He created it to do precisely what it does, and nothing in nature works without His will and presence.

Don't underestimate God's power and wisdom.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Well, my problem is that my beliefs on this topic clash with the beliefs of the LCMS. I’m formerly Catholic who tried several churches when I left and settled on Lutheran LCMS. The Catholic church is a conservative bunch regarding some things but not when it comes to subjects such as this. I still wonder whether I’m in the right place.

Do you have to deny things that are true to stay LCMS? Do you have to do so to revert to being Catholic. We have a saying that truth prevails. How much truth needs to be held as untrue?