The Origins War –– Evolutionary Creationism
Is Evolution compatible with new creation? On the necessity of the historical Adam and the catastrophic repercussions for rejecting him.
In Part 2, I broke down the gospel into three parts–––historical (past), personal (now), eschatological (future). I identified the battle of the historical gospel had two fields: (a) the historical Adam and (b) death before sin. I argued how Young Earth theology is largely not essential to the personal gospel, nor is it necessarily the factual default Scriptural position, and if YEC is radicalized and championed too strictly as obligatory belief it can undermine the grace of the gospel. In short, YEC is not a foundational belief, nor is it a fact, it is a view; bearing in mind that YEC as a whole seems to contain much more dogmatic beliefs than a 6,000-year-old earth, such as the belief that the serpent required legs before the Fall (lest you be pagan). I also said that YEC approaches Scriptural interpretation mechanistically by advocating that the text of Genesis 1-11 is strictly a verbatim retelling of physical and mechanical correspondences void of theological dominance – a fact at odds with the rest of Scripture and Church history – which inadvertently teaches a pattern of Christian materialism, if you will, which seem to yield peculiar interpretations as gospel truth, just like the serpent had legs before the Fall or the gospel hinges on a 24-hour creation day model, as if Scripture is teaching the mechanics of natural phenomena while also appealing to save your soul at the same time.
In this entry, I continue to mark out the doctrinal boundary lines and attempt to show where YEC has a point, that the firm belief in Evolution on par with spiritual truths can compromise the historical gospel among other doctrine, particularly, how common ancestry can compromise the historical Adam. Let’s continue.
Sir Leslie Ward, “A caricature of Charles Darwin” published by Vanity Fair on September 30, 1871.
The fact/faith distinction mentioned last entry is vitally important for understanding the personal gospel and the war between these camps, given that believing facts about creation, whether scientific or Scriptural, does not give you faith in Christ necessarily, nor is it salvific. Albeit our understanding of creation may not have a 1:1 effect on new creation, but the historical gospel is still vitally important for sustaining doctrine profitable for teaching, correction, rebuke, and discipleship (2 Timothy 3:16-17). After all, the words spoken by Jesus Christ and the epistles written by the apostle Paul, not excluding other extra-biblical Second Temple literature as well, all seem to reflect the belief in an actual, historical Adam who fell from grace in disobedience whereby sin entered the world. And as Christians, we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, to believe what he believed, to behave how he would behave, all-in-all, to be more like Him–––that is, sanctification through the Spirit. Therefore, our theology ought to be consistent, coherent, and cohesive to sustain sanctification. Historicity and spirituality are Biblically intertwined, and for this reason, each one affects the other as well as our personal growth through the belief in certain doctrine. If a doctrine is false, it can yield false views of the world, provide false interpretations of Scripture, and stimulate false patterns of sacred learning. Be that as it may, there is still a bare bone, thief-on-the-cross salvation call – the personal gospel – that is wise not to dismiss, but also not mark as normative Christianity. In summary, while the personal gospel is the necessary heart by which the whole gospel hangs and the historical gospel is contingent, the historical portion of the gospel is still authoritative and imperative – an obligation I cannot overstate – for optimizing discipleship and understanding theological doctrine necessary for strength, vibrancy, and growth in spiritual maturity and mutual edification, so that carnal believers, the weak in faith, fence sitters or doubters do not stumble and fall.
Simply put; Christ is the cornerstone, Genesis a keystone. That said, YEC sees it very differently. They argue Christ is the gate and Genesis the keystone, so by rejecting Genesis and removing the keystone, then the entire faith falls and the gate collapses. And to be fair, they do have a point regarding the historical gospel (doctrine) and, therefore, a good reason to be concerned. YEC is right to believe that Genesis holds the historical foundation of doctrine (but not salvation), particularly, the relationship of systematic theology and prophecy with history. Despite Church history and its open stance on the doctrine of creation, such as Origen’s allegorical position on the six creation days and Justin Martyrs Day-Age belief, Genesis has never really been challenged before in the way it has today, and Evolution can be a stumbling block for a lot of people coming to Christ, for by rejecting Genesis they reject the rest. But as I said last entry, YEC can push too far and hang everything, the personal gospel too, on physical and mechanical correspondences; albeit a lot of those who reject Genesis are rejecting the physical and mechanical interpretation, many of whom were raised to believe YEC was absolute truth.
The Church as a whole, from Abraham to now, is progressively growing in our knowledge of doctrinal necessity, so we would do well to leave room for the progressive doctrinal understanding as new controversies and heresies rise to the surface, however subtle or saturated they may appear to be, especially if it even comes close to violating essential and central doctrine to the faith. The early Church Fathers did the same, contending Arianism, for instance, at the First Council of Nicaea as a direct response to heresy growing in and around the Church. Subsequently, then, appealing to the historical position of the early Church as a qualifier for why Genesis 1-11 can be taken very loosely is just a silly argument, it has no bearing on this issue now because, simply put, the synthesis of Evolution with Genesis is a new discussion and potential doctrine, and the outcome will make history. Even still, while Genesis 1 may have had loose interpretive views, Adam is almost unanimously accepted throughout Church history as the first historical living human being. And there is good reason for it.
For that purpose of sustaining sound doctrine, YECs are right, in principle, to take a firm stance against potential false teachings that may undermine the historical Adam and Eve who were specially created in the image of God de novo as the sole progenitors of humanity, the historical Fall when sin and death entered the world, the genealogical record of Christ, and other anchor points necessary for the historical gospel. That said, YEC believes Evolution (capital E) not only undermines but explicitly and implicitly violates the historical reality of Genesis 1-11 and its necessary anchor points, which are necessary for the historical gospel and, subsequently, renders God the author of evil (cause of sin and human death) and Jesus’ death on the cross in vain, as there is no sin to forgive on our behalf because humans did not cause sin to enter into the world. Ultimately, this renders the incarnation mute. The overarching argument is that Evolution is totally incompatible with not only creation but the gospel, too, and it is just a matter of time before people realize how implicitly destructive it truly is[1].
In this entry, I will not focus on whether death before sin included animals, though the concepts are inextricably linked, rather I am focusing primarily on the belief of the historical Adam and Fall (human death) and its necessary relationship with other doctrine. With that in mind, let’s return to the pending question: Is the theory of evolution in any sense compatible, complementary, or contradictory with what Scripture testifies about new creation–––the gospel? On that, I think Evolution can compromise the historical gospel and also undermine the personal and eschatological portions of the gospel. Here’s why.
Common Ancestry and Human Death
What ought to be contended by all Christians is the enormous wave of Christian scientists, scholars, and laymen rejecting Genesis 1-11 as pure fiction, mythos, or folklore because modern science strongly suggests otherwise; even blurring fact with fiction, rendering Adam less than historical, say, under the guise of mythohistory. This is most propagated by theistic evolutionists and Evolutionary Creationists, while not typically by EVCs who affirm Biblical authority and inerrancy, some do fall through the cracks. Evolutionary Creationists seem largely guilty, from what I can tell, of playing it too close to the edge of theistic evolution. There is a real danger in trivializing the contents of Genesis 1-11 in favour of common ancestry.
Common ancestry thesis is that life originated at only one place on earth, all subsequent life being related by a descent to those original living creatures––creating a tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. From there, homo sapiens live among a wider population of hominins who derive from ape-like ancestors. I will not engage the fluidity of animal evolution, here, and whether it undermines God creating distinctions or “kinds” in the beginning. My chief concern is on humanity and the gospel, and this view seems to contradict what Scripture says about a de novo Adam (special creation) made in God’s image and the Fall. Consider: Adam has parents, he was not made from the earth (Gen.2:7); Adam lived among other human-like hominids or hominins, male and female alike, before Eve; Adam’s parents were more animal than human, but were not apes; Adam has seen human (hominin) death firsthand, which counters Paul’s assertion that “sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned [in Adam/because of Adam]” (Romans 5:12); Adam and all other hominins made in the image of God presumably died before Adam, unless Adam is the only image bearer and was placed in Eden, and if so, then Adam’s children mated with the other hominins not made in the image of God (cf. James 3:9)[2]; While EVCs believe animal death is permissible, their version of animal death seems to include human death also, even if it is perceived, considering the fluidity between species and the wider population of hominins were all intellectually equal to Adam (and if not intellectually equal, then bestiality was morally permissible for Cain and Abel to bare children of their own). Physical human death, then, did not enter the world through Adam’s disobedience–––it was plainly in the world.
Need I go on? The tension is so remarkably thick that it appears utterly incompatible and contradictory with the historical Adam and Fall. For this reason, the firm belief in Evolution (capital E), particularly common ancestry, can help support an unbelief in the historical accuracy of Genesis and the historical gospel: whether that entails Adam is a fictional primordial symbol of mankind and not an actual person, that death always existed among humans (a wider population of hominins), that sin and death mentioned in Genesis is spiritual not physical, that the genealogical record is mere archaic symbolism lost in time and not historical, the flood is fake, Babel is babel, or Moses is merely a moral philosopher–––all this misses the point.
Now to be clear, despite popular opinion, Adam and Eve were not immortal by default: They were designed with death in mind. The only thing keeping Adam and Eve eternally alive was the fruit from the Tree of Life, which they were cut off from once they disobeyed God (Gen.3:22-24), from which sin entered the world and death became a reality. Eternal life was contingent upon Adam’s covenant with God–––eternal life was conditional and limited to the Garden of Eden. Because of these clear facts driven home by the text, (a) that God intended human death to be a part of physical reality, not as a contingency plan or Plan B, so to speak, but as an intentional part of a greater call for humanity, and (b) that Adam and Eve were the only ones given access to the fruit from the Tree of Life to have eternal life, which was restricted for humans in the Garden of Eden, I think it is unfair to accuse EVCs of imposing immoral, naturalistic belief onto Genesis in this regard. God permitted and intended human death to exist in the first place (He is all-knowing, after all). This may be uncomfortable for some, but the text is clear. Be that as it may, EVCs theological problem is not resolved or mitigated regarding human death. Paul very clearly says that “death reigned”, in a covenant sense, from “Adam to Moses” (Romans 5:14), not before Adam in a wider population of hominins, which would be an undeniable reign of about, say, a million years or so[3]. The language implies that Adam was, in fact, the first human being and a voluntary participant in the first covenant with God on behalf of humanity (more on this in a bit). Suffice to say, the problem roots much deeper than Evolutionary belief itself.
As I said in Part 1, the origins and evolutionary sciences are probabilistic and provisional, whereas Scripture intends to teach the spiritual truth of God–––sacred, foundational, eternal, and divine. Propagating a balancing act between Science and Spirit, where Science is right here but the Spirit is wrong there, reduces the theological and prophetic truth of Scripture to mere probabilism, on par or below theories espoused in evolutionary and origins sciences, and weakens the resolution of spiritual understanding to something less certain than naturalistic understanding, which can further reduce belief in Christ to cerebral affirmation alone. A cerebral gospel like this does not penetrate the heart, which ought to a strike a chord with those who know what believing in the personal gospel entails: “to present your bodies as a living self-sacrifice” (Romans 12:1-2). It conflates truth with human knowledge, as though the summation of our knowledge alone is the threshold or standard by which something is true; as though the essential value of truth is entirely pragmatic and contingent upon our ability to discern it, either determined by a balance of probabilities or favoured by a consensus among peers. But this statistical, reductionistic view for discerning truth hangs upon a priority structure greater than Evolutionary belief, the likes of which opens the floodgates to progressively devalue the gospel. EVCs propagate this, perhaps inadvertently, through a false relationship: Nature is the so-called 67th book of the Bible. The outcome of which usually results in a mythological Adam.
Natural History v. Natural Theology
Of course, as I said before, there is no contention between Scripture and nature. Incompatibility between the two can only come about by misinterpreting Scripture, nature, or both. Through God’s word the world was formed and by His breath the Word was written (cf. 2 Peter 3:5; 2 Timothy 3:16), so the text and external world should independently corroborate and complement one another. That is precisely how we gauge whether something is (reliably) true or false in everyday life–––direct observation, eyewitness accounts, second-hand testimonies and consistent hearsay, universal consensus, demonstrative proof, forensic or physical evidence, logical coherency and consistency, contradictory accounts, a balance of probabilities, et cetera. Scripture and nature are held to these same standards of reliability. Not only is our sense experience, reason, and conscience necessarily reliable but also our sense of discernment, morality, understanding, faith, perseverance, fear of the Lord and the revelatory power of God. The inner witness of the Holy Spirit, after all, is the source of our assurance, who intercedes and speaks to us in “wordless groans”, which happens outside of the Bible (Romans 8:26-27). To deny truth outside the text is to deny general revelation, and even the Spirit, as trustworthy. Truth doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor can it be reduced to the text alone, despite how some Fundamentalists may preach; Old and New Testaments attest to this fact[4]. Scripture accurately testifies about reality because it comes from the Maker of it. This is a no brainer. For instance, my wife Corie is a student of history and archaeology (a science in its own respect) and presents her findings for a living on Bible Discovery. The archaeological data she discovers consistently corroborates the historical accounts relayed in the Bible, and at times corrects theological positions. Equally as exciting is how insightful, vibrant, and fuller the context of Scripture can become as a direct impact from her ancient cultural and anthropological studies. Outside evidence not only supports the text, but it also enhances our understanding of it.
However, that is not what is being said, here. Au contraire! It is not nature but science – the explanation of evidence by nature through nature and the harmonization of said probabilistic data into theory – that is co-equal to divinely inspired truth, the backbone of which is the gospel. And not just any science, but origins and evolutionary science, the sum of which cannot meet the most powerful standards or empirical reliability: direct observation, eyewitness accounts, universal consensus, et cetera. And as I said before, origins science is observably unfalsifiable because the end result of large-scale cosmological and biochemical processes cannot be fully empirically verified, tested, reproduced, and repeated. And that’s a major problem. How so? Nature can look one way, but that does not mean nature is that way–––especially when supernatural agency is involved. Again, the battlefield is not of contesting the sciences that can be empirically verified, such as technological or medical evidence, but chiefly the dogmatic or firm belief in the origins of life and cosmos and evolutionary theories (henceforth, historical science) against essential Christian doctrine because it necessitates an overarching framework (or lens of interpretation) that can have layers of hidden, interconnected assumptions. Such is the case with Corie and archaeology; there is always alternative perspectives, interpretations, and conclusions of the same data pending one’s overarching chronology, religious framework, et cetera. And yes, this is so with different areas of Scripture, as well, but not so with the doctrinal essentials like the gospel centrality of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
While it is true that we must interpret Scripture and nature, and God is the Author of both (cf. Acts 3:15), it is self-evident that we do not interpret natural history the same way, or with the same weight rather. That is to deeply misunderstand natural theology as something purely natural. Scientific inquiry cannot adequately test, reproduce, and verify supernatural agency, that would go beyond the scope of the natural sciences–––the progressive understanding of the physical world. But everything that exists is made by and through the Christ (John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16-17). Therefore, to weigh the evidence of historical science against the historical gospel is to put the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit “hovering over the waters” and spoken through the prophets and apostles (Genesis 1:2; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Ephesians 3:5-6), a direct outpouring of hearing the personal gospel (Romans 10:17), at odds or on par with our cognitive faculties (Romans 8:16, 9-17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Ephesians 1:13-14; 1 Thessalonians 1:5). It naturalizes the Spirit (cf. Colossians 2:8-10).
Mythologizing the historical portions of Genesis sends profound deconstructive reverberations through all Scripture and doctrine profitable for discipleship. I don’t think I can stress how dangerous this line of thought is for the Church at large. It is so broad sweeping, for this entry I will focus most of my attention to how this stance affects the backbone of doctrine – the gospel – which is underpinned by historical, theological, and prophetic truths. The intention of the gospel and Genesis 1-11 clearly points to actual spiritual and physical happenings, not solely theological abstractions indiscernible from myth, legend, or fantasy. That would be to foster scientism at heart: theology is a subjective, unfalsifiable, private opinion. This is not so. There is always a balance struck in Scripture between the flesh and spirit. We would do well not to take Paul’s theological assessment of creation lightly.
A photograph of Darwin's “sandwalk” at Down House in Kent. He called it his “Thinking Path”.
Purpose of Natural Theology and General Revelation
General revelation, spoke of in Romans, does not mean that studying creation will reveal the intimate details missing from the Genesis account (and it doesn’t rule it out, either). It means that through our immediate sense experience, necessity of objective truth, logic and existential reasoning, conscience and moral understanding as well as our implicit knowledge of God “in the things that have been made” like plants, animals, the order and law of nature, life-permitting function of lifeless things (i.e., hydrological cycle, plants produce edible fruits and vegetables, etc.) and so on, the highest conceivable Being – God – is plainly visible and “clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world”. External creation points to, if not, proves the reality of God inwardly[6]. More than just mere existence, but God’s “invisible attributes, namely, His divine nature and eternal power” – nonmaterial (Spirit), immutable (unchanging), self-sufficient, eternal, omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (ever-present), omnibenevolent (supremely good) and holy (set apart)[7] – is perceptible through reason and conscience as well, so that we are all “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Basic theology of God is deducible from creation[6]. Indeed, from ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who deduced an uncaused cause or “Prime Mover” to the late atheist philosopher Antony Flew who led the charge against God yet passed away a theist because of the evidence of modern science, natural theology is a simple fact attested to throughout secular history.
What is often overlooked is that it’s not just the positive evidence that attests to God, it’s the negative evidence, as well. A closer inspection of God judging Job’s sense of justice and judgment (Job 38-41) reveals that even our lack of knowledge attests to God’s unfathomable wisdom, divine nature, and eternal power. God uses numerous anecdotes from creation – origin of earth, water and light, land formations, water cycle, weather patterns, sunrise and sunset, constellations, animal behaviour – to emphasize how little Job understands. Suggesting that God’s creation reduces the threshold for general revelation to just sheer awe and wonder. Smart or dumb, we are truly without excuse. Job’s humility is later vindicated after he repents: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know….therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-6, emphasis added). Funny enough, epistemic humility is one thing these scientists may not know much about!
In Psalm 19, the psalmist David is first to plainly bridge these theologies together, that nature speaks of God through silent action:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth. (NIV, Psalm 19:1-6)
From subliminal to evidential, nature arouses our implicit awareness of God. What’s more striking about this view is that David uses nature to illustrate a parallel between revelations: world and word, general and special (v.7-9). For instance, when David says, “The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes”, he parallels inward understanding given by God for following His commands to the sun’s light and warmth (v.5-6); a universal, constant, and impartial attribute of the sun, akin to God’s justice of which Christ Himself cites (cf. Matthew 5:45). David does so to draw a deeper relationship: Just looking at the world around us (v.1-6) and taking His word to heart (v.7-9), we fall short (v.10-14). Through the awe and majesty of the created order, God testifies about His divine nature and eternal power over the external world, and that through His intentional word (laws, testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, and decrees) He is more than just a passive, provisional power like the sun, but breaks through the distant, impersonal barrier laid by sin to verify His heart for humanity (v.7-9), that He is Lord of the outward and inward, of physical and spiritual, He is “my Rock and my Redeemer” (v.14). Only a God who is truly so ultimate, yet intimate would desire to forgive our “hidden faults” and sins (v.12), to “refresh our soul” and restore us blameless, innocent, and good.
This implicit fact of God, however, does not compel proper faith in God. With creation testifying God through and through, Paul clarifies a critical point. It is not that naturalism or bestial proclivities are the sole leading factors toward false worship, though it indicates the beginning phase toward such, rather it is that we cannot reject, rescind, or ignore our spiritual nature to worship, so we exchange it: the Creator for the things that have been made. When we conflate these attributes of God deserving of worship with nature (humanity included), we loosen our nature and bind things “contrary to [our] nature” (Romans 1:26). We substitute the natural order designed by God for bestial, unnatural worship. Having “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…. God gave them up to dishonorable passions….” (Romans 1:22-26). When our reasoning and conscience that points to a supernatural God is willfully naturalized, restricted to the observance of the material world, the natural world becomes the dominant frame of reference for moral, rational, and spiritual discernment. Outward looking, not inward. And once the knowledge of God is loosened or reduced, morality follows. Our spiritual nature is likewise reduced to a creaturely juxtaposition, as if it is more natural for us to behave like animals through bestial faculties, passions, and appetites, and less natural for us to be moral creatures designed as image bearers. This view is a common frame of reference in our culture today, and frequently reinforced by naturalism and scientism because of common ancestry, which presupposes human nature is bestial by descent and religious belief/experience is untethered to our nature, floating weightlessly above material existence[8].
But if the requirements/works of the law is written on our hearts, and our conscience also bears witness to this fact (Romans 2:14-15), then our nature is moral and spiritual by default, and we must desensitize, denormalize, and demoralize our nature to a bestial status. Then, the binding obligation to truth, moral truth, follows soon after: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28, 32). It is natural to be spiritual. It is normal for us to consciously worship God. It is this unique moral quality of humanness that sets us up as ambassadors of God here on earth, to take dominion through the reconciling power of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Timothy 4:4; Genesis 1:26-28). The spiritual and natural harmonize by design, just as Christ died and rose again in the flesh and we, too, will be spiritually glorified in the flesh come new creation. And it is precisely this sin-driven rebellion against God that splits the two and produces hardened hearts and those “slow to believe” spoken of throughout Scripture (Exodus 8:19, 32, 9:7, 34; Deuteronomy 15:7; 1 Samuel 6:6; 2 Chronicles 36:13; Job 9:4; Mark 6:52, 8:17; Luke 24:25; Romans 11:25; Hebrews 3:13-15). Our sin condition only worsens when this worship is no longer implicit or innate, when the Spirit is no longer vital to our “breath”. Hence, the need for the gospel.
Natural Theology and the Gospel
Paul is appealing to our deeply suppressed nature to worship God. In full spectrum, the Biblical authors do not set out to prove God’s existence against naturalism, atheism, agnosticism, or the like, as if we can truly doubt His existence (Psalm 14, 53). Rather, God is always assumed self-evident to all people, however subliminal or implicit He may feel. As sin deepens over time, a person’s heart becomes hardened to this fact–––cavalier, apathetic, cynical, abhorrent, indifferent. Yet even when God’s existence is reduced to mere possibility by a hardened heart, the possibility of God is still enough for one to cry out for Him as much as it is for God to judge them. Natural theology, then, is about the objectivity of hardened hearts. So, hardened to what, exactly? God’s existence? No. His forgiveness.
The gospel is about the Holy Spirit writing the law of God on our hearts and minds through the reconciling power of Christ who fulfilled the Law (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26; Hebrews 8:10, 10:16), to restore our fallen Adamic covenant and relationship with God in rightful worship (Romans 12:1). It splits the sheep from the goats, the light from the darkness (Matthew 25:31-46); and it starts right here, right now. By repenting, thereby devoting our life to His forgiving power, we must submit our breath to God–––repentance is submission, and submission is worship. Committing the gospel to heart, then, wages war against the hearts “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:7-9, 12-16) and the “present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesian 6:12), the weapons of which are pride, lust, sloth, greed, envy, vanity, et cetera (2 Timothy 3:2-5; Galatians 5:19-21).
Now, the earthly argument is to challenge the existential necessity of repentance, which is warranted if death came before sin: ‘Repent for what? Something that happened to me? God set things up this way, did he not?’ Of course, no Christian thinks this argument to be sound. Why? Repentance is underpinned by the historical Fall, and the historical fall underpins natural theology. In fact, natural theology is the groundwork for the whole gospel – personal, historical, and eschatological – which is why Paul lays it as his foundation at the beginning of Romans. It overviews how human nature has historically responded to the general revelation of God, even when confronted by His special revelation spoken through His prophets (Romans 10:12-21), which predicates Christian expectations for how one ought to personally respond to the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ in the face of sin, death, suffering, evil, and futility (cf. Romans 10:16-18, 13-21). The gospel call to unharden our hearts is only relevant if the instinctual requirements/works of the law (the “dos and donts”) written on our hearts, mentioned earlier in Romans, is a hardened remnant, a fragmented impression as fallen image bearers. If humanity is not fallen and our hearts are not hardened by effect, then Paul contradicts the Prophets. God need not give us a “heart of flesh”, we have all we need.
This deepens the necessity of de novo Adam and Eve made in God’s image as well as an actual Fall that is uniquely Adam and Eve’s fault by which sin entered the world and reigned through death (Romans 5:12, 17-21). For if physical death is not uniquely humanity’s fault, Christ became flesh, died in the flesh, rose in the flesh, and ascended into heaven in the flesh for nothing. The incarnation is futile. Christ’s descension into Sheol was to conquer spiritual death, but his ascension was to redeem the flesh from physical death. The historical gospel, therefore, constitutes that actual sin and death entered the world as a direct consequence of an historical, humanly Fall; the likes of which will be fully restored and glorified when the Christ returns with new creation. The incarnation and eschatological gospel hinge on this historical fact. By implicating the speciality and reliability of the historical Fall, it is a ticking timebomb of spiritual growth and theological understanding–––sanctification. That the Fall may have happened is a very dangerous line to blur for living out the Christian life, for fully loving God’s redemptive power, and for sustaining theological doctrine profitable for corporate understanding and fellowship.
Natural Prophecy and the Genealogical Gospel: The Historical Adam
This theological wound only deepens, however, because prophecy is also disconnected from history and Scripture is treated as a reliable ancient document that records claim of divine intervention. While people can still come to faith in Christ through historical reliability of the Gospels and Acts, this view when fully adopted renders the Prophets and Epistles exercises about divinity, not from divinity. Prophecy – from the Seed of Genesis to the return of Christ in Revelation – turns into ancient poetical or parabolic expressions of abstract moralism (cf. Ezekiel 20:49). Yet, prophecy is the backbone of the historical gospel.
A harmonization of Genesis 5 and 11, 1 Chronicles 1-9, the Gospels (Matthew 23:35, 24:37-39; Mark 10:6; Luke 3:23-38, 11:50-51, 17:26-27), and the Epistles (Romans 5:12-19, 8:19-22; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45; 2 Peter 3:4-7; 1 John 3:12; Hebrews 11:4), to mention prominent examples, are all clear on what’s essential, immutable historical doctrine. In historical and theological context, the genealogy from Adam to Christ was intended to track the historical record of the Messianic line (hence, why it records only male names), as first prophesied by God Himself, “And I will put enmity Between you [Satan] and the woman [Eve], And between your seed and her Seed” (NKJV Genesis 3:15-16). God’s remark about “her Seed” when rebuking/cursing Satan has traditionally been understood as a Messianic prophecy of the virgin birth because, in ancient context, women do not carry seeds–––men do. As presumably understood by Adam and Eve and recorded by Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19), and preached by Peter (Acts 3:21), this “Seed” to come was the One to save them from actual sin/death and restore the broken covenant and relationship between them, their offspring, and God. This One Seed prophecy grows into the root of the Abrahamic promise: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed”, which contextualizes a universal intent in Genesis. God’s original plan was to bless all people through the faithful obedience of Abraham (NKJV Genesis 12:1-3, 22:15-18). The promise of a forthcoming “anointed one”, prophet, and priest-king is attested to throughout Scripture (John 1:45; Luke 24:44; 1 Samuel 2:35-36; Daniel 9:25-26) and is later proclaimed by Paul to be Jesus Christ (NKJV Galatians 3:16). This theme is central to Genesis and the gospel (Galatians 3:8). Therefore, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (NKJV Galatians 3:29)
If the story of Adam and Eve is set to mere belief alone, of literary characters or otherwise, then the Messianic prophecy given by God in Genesis 3:15 is fiction–––there was no direct dialogue between God and Adam/Eve. So, the historical need to track the genealogical line of Christ, and justify that line in the Gospels, is mute. It morphs into a spiritual line, not a physical one, which strives against the context of Eve’s childbearing consequence (v.16a) immediately following Satan’s rebuke (cf. 1 Timothy 2:13-15). This Messianic genealogy was and is not intended nor was it believed by any of the authors of Scripture to be fictional, literary, or metaphorical (symbolic, yes, as were all numbers in a gematria alphabet, but not at the expense of history).
If the intention of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 is fictional, parabolic, allegorical, metaphorical, or literary, why do Jesus Christ and the apostles Peter, Luke, Matthew, John, and Paul as well as the prophets Moses and Ezra place these fictional characters in a real-world historical context, whether by progeny or parallelism with real historical figures, such as when Paul said, “for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given…Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Romans 5:13-14)?[9] Or Luke who “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” and traces the lineage of Christ to Adam “the son of God” (Luke 3:23-38). Context necessitates these characters are more than fictional literary devices profitable for “spiritual” use only.
Furthermore, Adam and Christ are constantly paralleled as two firsts of their kind, one natural and the other spiritual, where Adam is always regarded as one physical person: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit…. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)
What use is the historicity of Adam or Christ if not to affirm that God (not man) has conquered sin and will conquer death? The keystone of natural theology – human death is a result of human sin – is dislodged. If you rob the historical Adam of reality, then Paul’s prophetic words turn to dust (Romans 1:21-25, 2:14-15). As the Spirit testifies, yet again:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned….Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come…. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous….as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:12-21)
Even more so, just as Adam is a type of Christ, Eve is a type of Church. Just as “the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), and the body of Christ is married to Christ, we are redeemed through Christ, the “Last Adam” and “firstborn” of new creation (Ephesians 5:25-33; Ruth 4:1-10, 14; Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:18; Hebrews 1:6, 12:23; Revelation 1:5). The One Seed prophecy given in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between….your offspring and her offspring [Seed]; he shall crush your head, and you shall strike his heel,” is later revealed by Paul to be the Church, the body of Christ: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” (Romans 16:20) This only intensifies the relationship between this prophecy, theology, and history.
Virtually all theologians and scholars unanimously agree, the genealogical record of Genesis 5 and 11 is the crux of what binds Genesis to history. Paul even highlights this fact in his apologetic to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of Athens, that God “made from one man [Adam] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26-27). Eve is called “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20), Adam’s name means “man”, which suggests that he is, indeed, the father of all living. To disregard such, then, is to demote the entirety of Genesis 1-11 into the category of folklore, legend, or mythos–––no different than any other pagan myth. And the further into ancient history said genealogy is pushed back, say, hundreds of thousands of years (i.e., Adam is Homo heidelbergensis), the less and less historical it probably is. In fact, it’s a bit ironic; theistic evolutionists and EVCs alike will broaden or push the genealogy back to appeal to methodological naturalism in evolutionary science, but in doing, they only intensify the miraculous nature of the genealogies! To maintain an ancestral record of those who actually lived through oral tradition alone for hundreds of thousands of years is unheard-of, wholly unnatural. I would even say, the further Adam/Eve and Fall is pushed back into ancient history, the less likely man kept a record of it and the more likely Genesis was dictated by God. To concede such strives against all historical and archaeological data of Mesopotamian creation myths that resemble the Genesis account (i.e., Sumerian Eridu Genesis, Babylonian Enuma Elish, Ugaritic Adammu Myth, et cetera).
Therefore, we are left with two options: The genealogies of Genesis are either (a) fabricated, fantasy, or mostly false in a historical sense, or (b) Adam and Eve lived within 10,000 years of recent history. I don’t see a way around this tension. To cloud Genesis in myth or dismiss it as fiction because of modern scientific evidence, even if the gist, theme, or intention of the text is retained in some literary sense, is very dangerous to the faith. It’s not just Genesis that’s under revision, which is bad enough, but divine inspiration and the Spirit of Scripture, reliability of miracles and prophecy, eyewitness accounts, historical accuracy, the historical and eschatological gospel, you name it–––it’s the butterfly effect of hermeneutic. Adam and Eve cannot be literary, figurative, or allegorical representations of unknown polygenetic human origins lest prophecy, theology, and the gospel fall. If Adam and Eve did not consciously and historically fall, and sin did not enter the world through them, then Paul’s theological assertion of sin/death is misleading, confusing at best, and Christ’s redemption plan for sin/death is strictly spiritual or psychological or typological or allegorical, a “cleverly devised story” (2 Peter 1:16). Meaning, the New Testament is written by false prophets. This reverberates deeper than apostolic integrity, Christ’s deity is also suspect because he would be holding false beliefs about Adam and “the beginning” of creation (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6; John 8:44). If Christ holds false beliefs, then Scripture is not inerrant and divine inspiration would have to include errors–––the consequences of such belief lead to religious pluralism. There’s everything to lose, and nothing to gain. Belief may soon follow.
How the Natural Sciences Compromise Natural Theology
If creation was meaningfully spoken into existence by the word of God, then creation communicates Creator–––immediate intuition shouts divine intention. Direct intentionality, such as language, carries far more weight in a world of divine meaning than probabilistic implications. The dominant strands of theistic evolutionary presuppositions on the origin of life focus on methodological naturalism and, therefore, marry meaningless, stochastic processes with intentional life and theology too intimately, in my view; its affects seem to bleed over into Old Earth and Evolutionary Creationism in subtle and striking ways. If science and Spirit are equalized, it can deeply modify presuppositions and conclusions for understanding Scripture and sanctification.
To equalize the two is a bit ironic. The stochastic process is heavily relied upon in the natural sciences – biology, chemistry, physics, neuroscience, et cetera – and refers to “any process describing the evolution in time of a random phenomenon”[10]. It has a random pattern (probability distribution) that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely. The word stochastic roots from the Greek word stokhazesthai, which means “to aim at a mark, guess, or conjecture,” which is noticeably similar to the Hebrew word for sin, “to miss the mark”, and strikingly dissimilar to what Scripture says about the words of God (Psalm 19:7-11; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 4:12, 6:18; Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29) Theology is not conjecture and prophecy is not guesswork. God’s word does not aim at a mark, it just hits it[11].
By contrast, while signs, wonders, and miracles (and prophecies) may appear unfalsifiable – randomly scattered throughout Scripture and Church history, not consistent, predictable, or testable – what makes them all so special is that the timing of the miracle (or prophecy) is perceived as impossibly intentional, meaningful, and good. A miracle, by definition, opposes naturalistic assumptions in more ways than just supernatural, given that naturalism opposes intentionality and meaning in nature. Yet, the wonderful, awe inspiring reality of ordinary experience is predicated on the miraculous, whether by one-time occurrence or continual sustenance (cf. Hebrews 1:3). While theistic evolutionists see evidence of God’s handiwork in nature, that He intended it to exist, they hold God speechless. How so? The Creator’s design loses implicit resolution in its communicative qualities (general revelation) when God’s explicit and direct message to mankind (special revelation) is less discernibly true; or at the very least, it is less useful or discernible for obtaining justified true beliefs (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17). By compromising the historical gospel, they compromise natural theology, thereby compromising the harmonization of science with Scripture. All this does is muddy the interpretive process and revelatory power of Christ.
Theistic evolution weds miraculous intentionality with arbitrary randomness like a yin-yang wedding band. It’s an open marriage doomed for divorce. Why? Scripture and science are unequally yoked. They are not of equal value. Arbitrary random inferences interpreted in nature have power over intentional truths of Scripture, even so far as to overwrite Genesis as pure myth, rendering NT theology mistaken or humanly inspired. The intentional truth value in Scripture is much stronger than the implied truth value in nature. Scripture is evidence of God’s love for mankind as image bearers, which is far more valuable to living a fulfilled Christian life, and not desirable nor deducible through scientific methods. Theology, as understood through the Epistles, is chiefly intended to encourage proper spiritual growth through our mutual salvation in Christ–––sanctification through discipleship (2 Timothy 3:14-17). Equalizing Science and Spirit undercuts the truth value of Scripture and undervalues its sanctifying power.
There is no debating this fact: Adam and Eve were the first historical humans specially created in the image of God as the sole progenitors of humanity. Common ancestry is predominantly at odds with this fact; evolutionary biologists frequently undercut the underlying facts tied to the gospel to preserve scientific explanations first. Its labour has yet to yield fruit profitable for doctrine. Disconcerting to me, as one not educated in the natural sciences, forgive me if I’m mistaken here, is that evolutionary biologists admit that the genetic ancestry dilutes with each generation “to a number so small it is unlikely a descendant has any genetic material from most of their ancestors.”[12] In other words, the DNA passed down from Adam and Eve has left no trace in our modern genome. This is shocking. If we cannot know for certain if there was or was not an historical Adam or Eve, scientifically speaking, why make a stand for polygenesis at all?
Scripture makes claims about the origin of all created things that cannot be discounted, however generalized or simplistic the anchor points may appear. By marrying intentionality with stochastic presuppositions for life to exist/function with (intentional) theology, that is to place discerning probabilistic and contingent evidence inferred from random functions equal to or greater than discerning divinely inspired truth, it can be a very slippery slope for misunderstanding deeper Christian intentions, values, purpose, and living. That is, the two, faith and probability, become one–––as if faith needs a percentage of doubt! (cf. James 1:5-8) Prophecy is exchanged for prediction, humility for knowledge, stars for dust. It’s no longer a spiritual commitment, it’s a rational ascent. It puts a bottom-up view of reality on equal footing–––no–––at a higher advantage than God’s intended pattern for spiritual growth and further reduces the on-going process of sanctification to the compliance of bare-minimum prerequisites of ‘spiritual’ facts. And whether those facts have authority or act as arbitrary guidelines is a blurry line. It may not weaken God’s grace or damage the personal gospel per se, but it grieves the great commission–––the communal gospel!
Science Needs Scripture to be Reliable
There are serious implications if we accept the evidence obtained by historical science on par or above the historical gospel. For it is plain the harmonious truths of the Bible – its history, theology, prophecy, and doctrines useful for discipleship – is of the same Spirit that testifies to our spirit, if indeed the Spirit lives within you (Romans 8:16). If such truths are loosened, God appears reasonably arbitrary in His superintendence whereby intentionality loses its acute perceptibility in creation. In other words, if the intentionality of God is equally as (in)discernible in unspoken correlations scattered throughout creation as it is in intentional spoken language of Scripture, even when spoken through human idiolect as Scripture is the product of man “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21), then we’re in quite the pickle: His intentional superintendence over nature, too, (our reason and conscience included) is equally as tenuous and unreliable as His intentional superintendence over the truths of Scripture (the gospel included), if indeed poor reliability in the Spirit’s intention is assumed. If Scripture is unreliable, then science would be, too, because God’s Spirit is unreliable even when it is directly and explicitly communicated. And if unreliable, then not trustworthy. We’re thrown into a Catch-22 not unlike naturalism. For science to be tenable, reliable, and trustworthy, it hinges on the manifest reliability of God’s clear and comprehensible intentions. So, here we are again: Do we bend our knee to scientific consensus or simply trust in God’s word from the start?
Conclusion
The historical Adam is vital. To trivialize such is to play a dangerously fine line. The deep-seated desire to affirm Evolution (capital E) as optimal or obligatory true belief can, has, and dare I say, will weaken spiritual patterns necessary for sanctification, or at least, indicate the beginning stages of steady decline. I stand side-by-side with YECs who teach human reasoning and conscience were not designed by God independently of one another through incremental stages of animal development (common ancestry), and that our moral understanding and cognitive faculties overlap and unify necessarily as our way of discerning moral truth, so theories that teach the two were at one time distinct from one another run contrary to natural theology. That is, we need moral truth as an anchor, in our periphery, to keep reason in check. If the last two centuries has taught us anything, it’s that a steady rise in scientism and liberal scholarship leads to weak church fellowship and fallen faiths. Sanctification fails to soften the heart and falls prey to rhetorical temptation, sacrificed on the altar of social acceptance and the “secret knowledge” of scientific consensus – conflating miracles with mythology, splitting prophecy from history, divorcing natural from spiritual, subverting certainty in the Writer for certainty in the reader. The Church, then, is reduced to an optimist club of intellectual solidarity–––spiritually stoic, emotive, Gnostic. Progressive, but not possessive. There is a peculiar spirit at work behind secularism that enforces Evolutionary belief in academia and onto laymen that doesn’t sit well with me (cf. 1 John 4:1). This spirit bleeds into the synthesis of Evolution with Genesis and has been for nearly two centuries. It’s cutting it too close for comfort.
While many commentators, philosophers, and theologians today such as William Lane Craig, whom I respect, believe there is compatibility between Evolution and Genesis, or at least believe that a synthesis of science and Scripture ought to be sought after, they tend to bulk up the scientific evidence and thin out the Scriptural evidence, placing the historical Adam hundreds of thousands of years ago as Homo heidelbergensis and affirming incredulous notions like Genesis 1-11 is “mythohistory” because it shares common words and idioms and word pictures with surrounding ancient Mesopotamian myths. Granted, Craig is conscientious of the catastrophic repercussions for rejecting the historical Adam and Fall; his proposal ought to be viewed as a potential model for the harmonization of evolutionary science with Genesis 1-11, not dogma or equal to divine inspiration, and proposals of this sort ought not be condemned nor frowned upon so long as the proper priority structure of belief is in place (and quite frankly, it may very well be the best synthesis of Evolution and Genesis to date). That said, if a proposal does not consider the “economy of Scripture”, as Basil puts it––well––in the words of Owen Strachan, “When you put these two qualities in a cage and tell them to get along, one ends up swallowing the other. As a spoiler, the mythical always wins out.”[13] James M. Rochford also faithfully and systematically deconstructs William Lane Craig’s newest proposal on Genesis as mythohistory for its destructive potential in sustaining sound doctrine (cf. Galatians 5:9; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Matthew 16:5-12).
I fear that fully adopting Evolution at the expense of Scriptural truth and the historical gospel will inevitably produce that cerebral Christianity that has no fruit to bear, showcasing a strength of intellect but an anemic faith that lacks perseverance, and if given enough time will not fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith (2 Timothy 4:7-8). What does Scripture say? God chose you “to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14) “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) Paul, elsewhere, advises us to be weary of stumbling through sanctification, so that we “may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.” (1 Timothy 1:18-19)
To reiterate what I said before; exploring the harmonization of science with Scripture is not the problem. Finding areas of potential compatibility, even if said proposals are wrong, is not the problem. It’s overturning, undermining, or rewriting the Spirit and, therefore, the truth of Scripture because of modern scientific explanations, as if the spiritual kneels to the physical. Due to the direct intentionality explicit in Scripture, and the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, the degree of truth in theology is pre-set to a higher standard than the natural sciences. Spiritual beliefs and scientific beliefs are not of equal value, and to make it such distorts the hierarchal priority structure of belief that God ordained. Therefore, when Old Earth and Evolutionary Creationism claims ‘Nature is the 67th book of the Bible’ or the ‘Nature is God’s other book’, is that scientific explanations on the origin of life and cosmos and evolutionary science are equal to God’s intentional truths. Truth is no greater than scientific theory. Equalizing the playing field doesn’t seek to harmonize, it seeks to destroy. When you look at Genesis through the lens of nature, Genesis will always look like mythology.
Next Entries
There is a lot more that could be said, surprisingly, but I’ve grossly exceeded the length of this entry, so space forbids me. Now that the proper boundary lines are established – the gospel-centric view of Christianity – in the upcoming entries I intend to delve into Genesis and examine the YEC and EVC arguments of Genesis 1-11 far more closely, while also presenting my own views along the way. Bear in mind; the theological, prophetic, and spiritual purpose of Scripture creates degrees of intention and interpretation for understanding the text, where the implications of what the Bible teaches will have degrees of strength when it is debatable, non-essential doctrine. I will not publish these sequentially, but periodically as I find time.
Matlock Bobechko | First published on November 1, 2021 on Bible Discovery. Substantive Revision October 24, 2022.
[1] Evolution and its presuppositions completely strive against their faith, conscience, and theological framework; they don’t hide this, in fact, they state this very clearly. And quite frankly, I respect it. Regardless of YECs doctrinal parentage, whether Seventh Day Adventist or Judaism, YECs stand firm in their conscience over and above what’s said to be “almost certainly true” in the natural sciences. This is biblical. Some go too far, but not all.
[2] This view assumes the image of God entails the synthesis/harmony of our physical attributes, intelligence, freewill, spiritual/divine status, et cetera. If the image of God was isolated to just a divine status alone, then Adam could be appointed to his position when he was placed in Eden. This view does not seem to contradict the text from what I can tell. The other argument is that Adam’s children would have all interbred with the hominins by New Testament time and, therefore, become part of the human race genealogically. Therefore, everyone would technically be made in the “likeness of God”. But this second argument is suspect.
[3] I should note, here, that some EVCs have argued that the verse “death reigned from Adam to Moses”, refers to merely spiritual death/sin because clearly people are still physically dying and did not stop with Moses. YECs, in turn, attempt to argue this is proof of physical death coming from Adam because “sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin” (Rom.5:12). The push by EVCs, here, is to make a case that physical death existed before the Fall. In other words, Paul is saying spiritual death came through sin, and sin through Adam’s disobedience. But this misapplies modern concerns and Greek philosophical dichotomies into Pauline thought. Paul is referring to major covenants of human history – Adamic and Mosaic – and a better understanding of covenants clears up this concern. Quickly, the Adamic covenant meant death reigned as king over mankind, whereas the Mosaic covenant meant God reigned as king over Israel (i.e., Mosaic covenant was not written in the style of an Assyrian vassal treaty, which a king would establish by intimidation with a slave, a ‘do this or die’ covenant, rather it was written in the style of a Hittite vassal treaty, which a king would establish on gratitude, a ‘do this because I did that for you’ covenant), and Christ fulfills the Old covenant and, then, takes it and applies it to all of humanity, and Adam is the father of humanity. Therefore, the Second Adam (i.e., Christ) restores God’s intended original covenant with humanity: Eternal Life. Be that as it may, even if their view was true, it does not reduce Adam to myth or fiction nor does it mean physical death did not come through Adam. It is just not the primary point Paul is getting at. Either way, nothing is lost from the traditional view. When Adam ate the fruit in disobedience, physical death entered the world because he was the sole progenitor of humanity and the only one able to spread the Tree of Life across the world, which was sustaining him physically according to the text. Christ came to restore the flesh come new creation, not save us from spiritual death alone. New creation is a return to the Edenic state, which means eternal physical and spiritual life together, fully integrated, where physical death is thrown into the lake of fire, which is the “second death” or spiritual death (Revelation 20:14). Admittedly, I need to explore the implications of this argument further. If there is no teaching that physical death came after sin, then it leaves an open door for physical death to exist prior to the Fall.
[4] James M. Rochford makes good note of this fact: “First, the NT repeatedly quotes non-biblical sources as truthful. Paul quoted Cleanthes and Aratus (Acts 17:28) and Menander (1 Cor. 15:33). He affirmed the statement of Epimenides, writing that his “testimony is true” (Titus 1:12-13). The non-believing Caiaphas makes a correct prediction about Christ’s death (Jn. 11:49-53). Paul refers to “Jannes and Jambres,” which were magicians, who were not mentioned anywhere else in the OT (2 Tim. 3:8). He also quoted words of Jesus, which were not contained in the four gospels (Acts 20:35). This shows that some non-canonical sources can contain truth in them…. Truth is truth—no matter where it is found.”
James M. Rochford, “(Jude 9, 14-15) Why does Jude quote the Assumption of Moses (v.9) and the Book of Enoch (v.14-15)?” Unseen Evidence.
https://www.evidenceunseen.com/bible-difficulties-2/nt-difficulties/jude/jude-9-14-15-why-does-jude-quote-the-assumption-of-moses-v-9-and-the-book-of-enoch-v-14-15/
[5] However subtle or saturated this proof of God is depends on the (hardened) conscience of each person of which God is the judge (Romans 2:15-16), given that our sin nature separates us from God. Therefore, it seems to me at least, that our nature post-Fall rests somewhere along the lines of deism and theism by default (not atheism or naturalism), meaning that we believe God is real but assume God is unknowable and impersonal. Or we could also say that from our nature we do not attempt to know God, despite our ability to implicitly deduce from creation that God is (or at least could be) knowable and personal, based on His divine nature and eternal power, but we would rather depersonalize Him than worship Him. This is a larger topic for another day.
[6] I do not think science itself reveals anything about God’s omnipresence (ever-present), omnibenevolence (supremely good) and holiness (set apart), which are, arguably, the most important and practical attributes for us to affirm. Those attributes rest purely on a person’s faith and conscience to affirm (cf. Hebrews 11:1-3).
[7] This high view of natural theology is often rejected by YEC. Instead, they argue only some of God’s attributes can be discerned given the curse bestowed on nature in Genesis 3:17-18 and “creation was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20). But this understanding of natural theology is contrary to Paul’s point.
[8] Admittedly, this does not dissuade theistic evolution necessarily. It is often argued that God “renovated” our bestial selves into our present human self – anatomically, biologically, and spiritually human. But this stimulates an alternate problem. If our fleshly, bestial selves is a basis of sin (James 3:15-16), then God “renovated” us with pre-existing original sin/death intact (in the flesh) before the Fall, to act as “irrational animals” (2 Peter 2:12; Jude 1:10), rather than the potential of sin existing prior. In other words, we were created with actual (not potential) earthly temptations and proclivities toward sin. Yet, Paul says, “sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned [in Adam/because of Adam]” (Romans 5:12). Also, this may intensify the issue of sin if Adam was renovated as an adult because he would presumably remember and recall his actual bestial behaviour prior to renovation, which means Adam was not innocent, but in a place between needing forgiveness and forgiven; if, indeed, he had the experiential knowledge of good and evil beforehand as we do today, but according to Genesis 3, he did not. More on this in a later entry.
[9] The paraphrased counter argument to this view is that: If Paul placed the fictional Egyptian magicians from Jewish folklore, Jannes and Jambres, adjacent to the historical Moses in 2 Timothy 3:8, why couldn’t Paul do it again with “Adam to Moses”, or Adam and Christ? Comparing the historical Christ to a literary Adam of sorts? I think the answer to this is quite simple. He did so because in Scripture there were plural magicians mentioned in Exodus 7:11, 22, 8:7, but more than two rods placed on the ground to contend Moses’ serpent (Exodus 7:8-13). So, Paul had grounds to mention them by what the culture knew them as. Even though their names are only found in Jewish apocryphal literature, the names could still be correct, even if the apocryphal literature itself is not. Now, suppose the names Jannes and Jambres are not historically correct, and Paul referenced them as a memory aid for his Jewish audience, the context of “Adam to Moses” and comparing Adam to Christ is still intended to explain the historical reality of sin, the likes of which causes physical and spiritual death. Christ rose in the flesh to conquer the physical death, as well, not just the spiritual “second” death. Otherwise, Christ would only need to rise in the Spirit. Interestingly, if you were making up a story, this version would be much easier to explain away, given that the resurrection account would be unfalsifiable. Furthermore, the Biblical authors also do not assume that truth exists exclusively in the Bible alone, but often quotes or encourages readers to explore a variety of texts that are not Scripture such as the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14), Jasher (Joshua 10:13), Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), among others; Jude quotes the Assumption of Moses (v.9) and the Book of Enoch (v.14-15) and Paul quotes the Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-10,14:22-31 in Romans 1:18-31.
[10] Stochastic Processes. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/stochastic-processes
[11] To be clear, there is no problem with the stochastic process itself, collecting scattered data that appears random to find statistical correlations. In fact, natural selection is a principle of order, not chaos. The problem is that direct, explicit, intentional meaningfulness is consciously depreciated in value and meaningless correlations, that require a larger operational framework of probabilistic interpretation, has a higher value. The entire process undermines meaning. A mechanism can still be orderly and meaningless. And meaninglessness, futility, vanity, purposelessness, and so on, is all at the center of sin (1 Timothy 1:6; Titus 1:10; 1 Corinthians 14:10-12,19).
[12] Joshua Swamidass, The Genealogical Adam & Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, 35-6. Extracted from Hans Madueme, Evolution and Historical Adam? A Provocative But Unconvincing Attempt. The Gospel Coalition. Published on March 2, 2020. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/genealogical-adam-eve-swamidass/
[13] Owen Strachan, A Response to William Lane Craig on the Historical Adam: Adam Was the First Human and Genesis 1-11 is Not Mythical. Owen Strachan’s personal blog. Published on September 22, 2021.
When I was in my 20s and when asked if I supported creation or evolution theories, I once quipped, perhaps God created evolution! It saved me all the head scratching research and pondering, while still acknowledging that God knew the answer and that I place Him above any scientific discourse.
Matlock is a blessing for his knowledge and research. A true servant of God.