We are reviewing the book, Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona, subtitled Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults. Today we look at Chapter 5- Adam, Eve, and History. Cootsona starts the chapter citing a Pew poll from 2012 that found 64% of white evangelicals and 50% of black evangelicals do not believe humans evolved. The historicity of Adam and Eve remains one of the most contentious points between mainstream science and evangelical Christians. The same poll found 78% of mainline Protestants are in support of human evolution.
Cootsona outlines the 3 basic positions on human evolution that Christians could take. One being the basic YEC position that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth, specially created, and all humans descended from them. The Garden story and the Fall are to be taken literally as recounted; any literary position is contradicted by the apostle Paul in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Position 3 is the position outlined by C.S. Lewis; a literal Adam and Eve never existed; instead they are paradigmatic of the human condition. Lewis in The Problem of Pain wrote, “For long centuries, God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of himself.” In this view we are not descended from a single pair of humans, but from gradual evolutionary development and share a common descent with the great apes. This is the position that accords with mainstream science (and YECs would argue simply capitulates to modern science). The second position holds that Adam and Eve are, in some ways historical figures, but generally sets out a time period for common descent with other primates and then designates a point when God decided to set Adam and Eve apart as the first and original image-bearing Homo sapiens. This is the view of John Walton, S. Joshua Swamidass, C. John Collins, and Tim Keller.
The real problem is the interpretation of Paul in Romans 5:12-21 and 1Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49. The Genesis text itself displays evidence it is not to be read in some modernistic, CNN-news report, type of historical narrative. A talking snake who loses its legs, magic fruit that make you wise when you bite it, another magical fruit that makes you live forever. Angels with flaming swords—so where is Eden, the Bible doesn’t say Noah’s flood destroyed it, we should at least be able to walk up to the flaming-sword-wielding guards. A man named “The Man”, a women named “Mother of All Living”, another man named “Spear” who kills his brother named “Fleeting Breath”. Then he worries about other people killing him—what other people? And he takes a wife- who would that be? Don’t say his sisters, Genesis 4 is pretty clear that after Cain killed Abel there were no sisters born yet. If these features don’t make you at least wonder what kind of literature this is—then nothing will.
Paul, on the other hand seems quite succinct in 1Corinthians 15:21-22:
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
It seems obvious that Paul thought Adam was a historical person. Scot McKnight in the book Adam and the Genome, which I reviewed here, probably gave the best attempt at re-interpreting Paul that I’ve ever read. Cootsona tries his best to flesh out nuances in these positions with respect to emerging adults. Position 1 simply does not accord with mainstream science, and the risk of holding to that position is to present to the emerging generations the “all or nothing” approach; if you “give in” to evolution you can’t be a Christian. It’s become apparent that many emerging adults, when presented with this stark dichotomy, are choosing not to identify as Christians. Cootsona’s solution is to “keep our eyes on Jesus” as the historical figure, because He is our center, the author and finisher of our faith. He notes that Adam does not make extensive appearances in the Bible nor the creeds.
Cootsona notes bestselling author and theologian Greg Boyd read Lewis’ views as an undergraduate while he was struggling with YEC, which he believed to be the Christian consensus. He though YEC made little sense scientifically, and Lewis’ insights into Adam and the fall helped him keep the Christian faith viable. Ultimately, Boyd was inclined to believe in a historical Adam, vis-a-vis position 2, but the experience of reading Lewis and the purely typological view led him to this conclusion:
I, as a pastor of an evangelical and Anabaptist church, think it vitally important that we not put forth the historicity of Adam as a matter that is essential to Christian faith. Regarding those who can’t see a harmony between the statements “I believe in Christ” and “I don’t believe Adam was historical” he says, “I implore them to refrain from becoming dogmatic on this point and simply to trust the genuineness of those who disagree. The fact is, dogmatism on this point would have tragically barred C.S. Lewis, myself, and a multitude of others from the life-giving kingdom. This debate, he concludes, should be construed as a debate among orthodox Christians, not as a debate that determines whether or not one is an orthodox Christian.
Cootsona begs people to remember that emerging adults are sick of the conflict between Christians and scientists. For the demographic that is the focus of this book, positions 2 and 3 both take mainstream science and mere Christianity seriously. Let’s agree to disagree without excommunicating each other.
Here is how I try to phrase the issue to evangelical Christians in my circles. Science hasn’t proven human evolution is true, and it never will. But that is because science doesn’t ever prove anything that is inferred about past historicity, it simply gives provisional preference to the current most probable explanation. In other words, we have, so far, failed to reject the hypothesis (no. 1) that humans share a common ancestral population with apes. The hypothesis (no. 2) that humans appeared instantaneously at one point in the recent past and have no shared genealogy or genomic history with the great apes has failed.
Evidential example number 1- the fossil record. If hypothesis #2 is correct, there should be no evidence of creatures in the fossil record that exhibit phenotypic characteristics shared between apes and humans. In fact, we see an incomplete but noticeable continuum with older fossils more apelike than human and newer fossils more human-like than ape. “Probable hominins” like Ardipithecus ramidus, a species that lived in Africa about 4 million years ago (mya) had skeletal characteristics intermediate between upright walking and the climbing of trees, and a small cranial capacity of 300-350 cubic centimeters (cc) (modern humans are about 1,300-1,400 cubic centimeters). Australopithecus afarensis (aka Lucy) about 3-4 million years ago shows further shifts toward walking and a cranial capacity of 400-550 cc. Later still we see pre-modern Homo erectus (“Upright Man”) dating to about 1.8 mya with full bi-pedalism and a cranial capacity of 700 cc. We have failed to reject the hypothesis (no. 1) that humans share a common ancestral population with apes.
Hypothesis number 2 fails to account for the physical reality of the fossil record.
Evidential example number 2- Endogenous Retroviruses. Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs) are lingering remnants of failed viral infection, which occurred in an ancestor’s sex cell and got propagated in its offspring. The viral insertion site is completely random and finding one in the same location in two individuals indicates they each had that same ancestor. There are at least sixteen different known instances of common retrogene insertions between chimps and humans. The Odds of 16 in the exact same place are not possible except as explained by hereditary mechanisms. Hypothesis number 2 fails to account for the physical reality of Endogenous Retroviruses, however, we have failed to reject the hypothesis (no. 1) that humans share a common ancestral population with apes.
Evidential example number 3- Ubiquitous genes. The gist of the argument:
- Ubiquitous genes: There are certain genes that all living organisms have because they perform very basic life functions; these genes are called ubiquitous (universal) genes.
- Ubiquitous genes are uncorrelated with species-specific phenotypes: Ubiquitous genes have no relationship with the specific functions of different species. For example, it doesn’t matter whether you are a bacterium, a human, a frog, a whale, a hummingbird, a slug, a fungus, or a sea anemone – you have these ubiquitous genes, and they all perform the same basic biological function no matter what you are.
- Molecular sequences of ubiquitous genes are functionally redundant: Any given ubiquitous protein has an extremely large number of different functionally equivalent forms (i.e. protein sequences which can perform the same biochemical function).
- Specific ubiquitous genes are unnecessary in any given species: Obviously, there is no a priori reason why every organism should have the same sequence or even similar sequences. No specific sequence is functionally necessary in any organism – all that is necessary is one of the large number of functionally equivalent forms of a given ubiquitous gene or protein.
- Heredity correlates sequences, even in the absence of functional necessity: There is one, and only one, observed mechanism which causes two different organisms to have ubiquitous proteins with similar sequences (aside from the extreme improbability of pure chance, of course). That mechanism is heredity.
CONCLUSION: Thus, similar ubiquitous genes indicate genealogical relationship: It follows that organisms which have similar sequences for ubiquitous proteins are genealogically related. Roughly, the more similar the sequences, the closer the genealogical relationship. An example:
Cytochrome c is an essential and ubiquitous protein found in all organisms, including bacteria. It is a necessary part of a universal common metabolic process all cells with mitochondria need to synthesize energy used by the cell. The oxygen we breathe is used to generate energy in this process.
Cytochrome c is absolutely essential for life – organisms that lack it cannot live. It has been shown that the human cytochrome c protein works in yeast (a unicellular organism) that has had its own native cytochrome c gene deleted, and human cytochrome c inserted, even though yeast cytochrome c differs from human cytochrome c over 40% of the protein. Using a ubiquitous gene such as cytochrome c, there is no reason to assume that two different organisms should have the same protein sequence or even similar protein sequences, unless the two organisms are genealogically related.
From the theory of common descent and the standard phylogenetic tree we surmise that humans and chimpanzees are quite closely related. It is therefore predicted, in spite of the odds, that human and chimpanzee cytochrome c sequences should be much more similar than, say, human and yeast cytochrome c — simply due to inheritance. This has been confirmed: Humans and chimpanzees have the exact same cytochrome c protein sequence. In the absence of common descent, the chance of this occurrence is conservatively less than 10-93 (1 out of 1093). The number 1093 is about one billion times larger than the number of atoms in the visible universe. Furthermore, human and chimpanzee cytochrome c proteins differ by about 10 amino acids from all other mammals. The chance of this occurring in the absence of a hereditary mechanism is less than 10-29. Once again, we have failed to reject the hypothesis (no. 1) that humans share a common ancestral population with apes.
So why the big science lecture? The point I’m trying to make is that the explanation of common descent is the provisionally accepted most probable explanation we currently have. Could God have instantly created humans with the same ubiquitous genes in the same sequence as the great apes? Could God have permitted viral infections that took the exact same positions in apes that they took in humans? The answer is that, sure, he could have, God can do anything. But why? Why did he create creatures, now long extinct, that LOOK like they are transitionally developed between apes and humans? Why did he create gene sequences that LOOK exactly like they were inherited? My grandson had a paternity test conducted, as ordered by the court, when my great-grandson was born. The probability that my grandson is the father is 99.99%. The idea he isn’t the father is not seriously considered by anyone, not even by the most rabid creationist. The probability that we inherited the same cytochrome c sequence from the great apes is: 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%. There is no serious consideration that we aren’t related.
So why did Paul write what he wrote in Romans 5 and 1Corinthians 15? Well, I don’t know. Cootsona quotes Tim Keller:
[Paul] most definitely want to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures, When you refuse to take a biblical author literally when he clearly wants you to do so, you have moved away from the traditional understanding of biblical authority… If Adam doesn’t exist, Paul’s whole argument—that both sin and grace work “covenantally”—falls apart. You can’t say that “Paul was a man of his time” but we can accept his basic teaching about Adam. If you don’t believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul’s teaching.
Keller, who is not YEC, makes a very good point, and probably speaks for most conservative evangelicals. Now consider this quote from Scot McKnight from his book with Dennis Venema, Adam and the Genome:
“If we are to read the Bible in context, to let the Bible be prima scriptura, and to do so with our eyes on students of science, we will need to give far more attention than we have in the past to the various sorts of Adams and Eves the Jewish world knew. One sort that Paul didn’t know because it had not yet been created was what is known today as the historical Adam and Eve. Literary Adam and Eve, he knew; genealogical Adam and Eve, he knew; moral, exemplary, archetypal Adam and Eve, he knew. But the historical Adam and Eve came into the world well after Paul himself had gone to his eternal reward, where he would have come to know them as they really are.”
As I said in my review of Scot and Dennis’ book, there is no way the ancient authors of scripture, including Paul or even Jesus, could have imagined the implications of current genomics. To them, if you wanted a sheep you bred a male sheep to a female sheep, if you wanted a cow, you bred a male cow to a female cow, if you wanted a man, then a man and a woman had to get together. So at some point, logically, there had to be a first pair of sheep, a first pair of cows, and a first man and woman. What other explanation could there be? There is no way they could have imagined a population emerging, hell, I have trouble imagining a population emerging. If our species emerges from a primate lineage, when and where did the first morally culpable human arise? Are there lineages of humans that were/are not morally culpable? What is sin, how is it revealed to us, and what are its origins?
The only way we are going to get satisfying answers to the question of origins and who we are as living beings is for scientists like Dennis Venema to keep pushing the frontiers of science forward and theologians like Scot McKnight to think through the implications. There is no going back, and the young adults, who are listening to our conversation, are certainly not going back.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Oh, that memory is coming back now, too. Must’ve been what HUG remembered, too. Yeah, that got a bit tiring.
Still, the periodic reminder would be good now.
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I remember him but not the zingers. I just remember his tendency to derail every comment thread by an off topic assertion pushing a fundamentalist narrative within 30 seconds of every post going live.
He was always welcome. But he wouldn’t listen or interact in good faith.
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Trump > Betsy Devos > YEC > ANE > pork > Kevin Bacon
I did it in three but also went full Kevin Bacon.
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It’s extremely well financed and has been since Scopes…
Someone who actively pushes and promotes YEC’s multi-million dollar boat was just set adrift last night in fact…
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Anyone down for a road trip to Colorado? lol
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Very good Dana. 🙂
Greg
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He also had could crack a good joke on occasion, some real zingers. Because of his namesake, when I read his comments I always pictured him with the ends of a fake arrow sticking out of his head, which made me laugh too.
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He may have had a one-track mind, but at least it was playing a tune we all need reminding of.
It grew old at the time, but I think I could use the periodic reminder, especially here, where we so often devolve into the chaff.
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I miss Steve, too.
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Yes.
I think the NT is a reliable witness to that historicity – and as reliable is the testimony of those who have given their lives for him, not simply as a historical figure, but as the Source of Life.
Dana
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Good thoughts, Dana. To center Christian truth and faith in the historicity of Adam is to put the emphasis in the wrong place, since they should be centered in Christ. For that reason, at least some level of reliable historicity (although not one which demands that every word written about him is historically accurate) must be thought to reside in the figure of Jesus as it is given us in the New Testament, or we do indeed lose contact with Christian faith. The historicity of Jesus Christ, not Adam, is central to our faith.
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There were supposed to be blockquotes around the first paragraph…
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The only way we are going to get satisfying answers to the question of origins and who we are as living beings is for scientists like Dennis Venema to keep pushing the frontiers of science forward and theologians like Scot McKnight to think through the implications. There is no going back, and the young adults, who are listening to our conversation, are certainly not going back.
Are they listening? Many of have stopped listening, and no doubt many of the best and brightest are among them. Of the few who are still listening, some are intent on not going back; but you can bet that some are more than happy to go back — at least, they are happy to go in a direction they think is back, though it really can’t be. Indeed, some of these last are rabid for going in the direction they think is back, and those are full of passionate intensity….
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You may wish to do a web search for ‘Greg Gianforte creationism’ for starters.
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There are reasons why I have a low opinion of Calvary Chapels.
They seem to distill down all the ways Fundagelicalism can go sour.
Including “SCRIPTURE!” as “Party Line, Comrades!”
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–> “Show me SCRIPTURE!”
That is the mindset of someone who hates being challenged and who is also extremely fearful. And when that is the mindset of someone in power and who has authority over others, look out! Very unhealthy.
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I remember him; I don’t miss him.
Guy had a one-track mind.
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And more Addictive than a Smartphone App.
And Very Very CHRISTIAN(TM):
http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html
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“It seems obvious that Paul thought Adam was a historical person.”
and
The Whole Keller Quote.
Well, such ideas are only “obvious” because we have been trained to think and approach texts in that manner. Keller seems clear that he is thinking along Reformed Covenantal lines. Paul and the earliest Christians did not approach the text of Scripture in terms of “historicity” as McKnight writes, or in terms of the Reformation understanding of “covenant”, as N.T. Wright has clearly shown.
It would be helpful to know what the Jewish teaching of Paul’s day was; Paul was certainly piggybacking off that, as with so much of what he wrote. They were sophisticated enough thinkers to be able to handle the subject without being wedded to what we understand as “historicity”. Wright says that Paul understood a “mythic” sense to the story while still believing in a first pair with names. Paul is laying out a typological interpretation, very much like the Greek Fathers did.
The view of our first parents that was held by the greatest thinkers of the Church through the first few centuries (including Basil of Caesarea, who was brilliant and one of the most highly educated men of his time, including in the known sciences) was consistently a combination of position 2 – but without reference to evolution, which wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen until the 19th century – and Lewis’ understanding as position 3, and leaned more toward this. None of the early theologians I have read has specifically discussed a crisis of faith arising from Adam not being “literally historical”. It simply was not a concern until the post-Enlightenment period, and it wasn’t a concern for Paul, either. He could and did deal with these things typologically.
What the 1Cor passage is concerned with is the Resurrection and how, like sin/death, it affects all humanity, not whether the character Adam was “historical”. A stronger argument about Adam’s “historicity” could be made from Rom 5, but again, the passage isn’t about that; it’s contrasting **what happened** when Adam did what he did with **what happened** when Christ did what He did. It is a typological interpretation. Typology keeps us out of the weeds of “Bible vs science” and literal/historical vs “strictly mythological” – weeds that can grab our ankles and pull us into the mire.
The contentious nature of the “historicity of Adam and Eve” is only so because of a particular ***Interpretation*** of scripture adopted by people who were (and are) thinking within the framework of Enlightenment philosophy and trying to address science in the terms of science in order to combat what they saw as a threat to faith. It’s a losing proposition, because we’re trying to impose on Paul our own way of interpreting via post-Enlightenment ways of thought. Paul didn’t think that way. If he were around today, I think he would do a face palm out of frustration with both YECs and those who think Scripture and science are in contention with one another. The typological interpretation is the only one I’ve found that actually makes sense of the Bible and allows science to be what it is.
I highly recommend St Basil’s “On the Human Condition”.
Dana
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Fine with me.
“…I guess it better than being in the devil’s club, where is their clubhouse?
For those of us in Indianapolis, it’s here:
https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/bill-belichicks-house-1/view/google/
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Set people on fire? Throw everything into the void? You need to gather some friends and go have a drink 🙂 Your Finnish existential angst is flaring up.
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Do any of you IMonk old-timers remember frequent-poster Steve Martin, whose every post seemed to be a one-liner about Jesus and His saving grace and His blood shed for us? Sometimes I miss such simplicity. (This isn’t a knock against this article, it’s more of a tiredness over all the other tangents we seem to go on.)
So, in a nod to Steve Martin…
Jesus died for us and rose again to give us eternal life! Praise God the Father!
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Those who do read, in my experience, tend to read topically rather than narratively or in order to understand a book’s purpose in the canon. If scripture can’t be appropriated to serve an immediate and apparent end, its ignored.
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Very good.
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> well financed and well connected
YEC is, ultimately, Just Another Conspiracy Theory.
Conspiracy Theories are profitable and useful. 😦
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> My response is also always sure, he could have.
Which is a path that can lead only to madness; as once you open that gate – why not anything at all? Perhaps God made it only appear that when you set other people on fire they die horribly? I mean, sure, he could have, right? Where is your evidence to the contrary?
This kind of thinking is way beyond throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it is tossing everything into the void.
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“don’t read much anymore.”
Did they previously? I am skeptical.
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So is his buddy in Moscow.
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Hello Senecagriggs,
I’m quoting Stephen. Check this out with him for details about the money and its ‘sources’.
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Please , let us not make this fine article and the good comments above, excluding mine, turn into a 6 Degrees of Trump parlor game. Let us also be careful when we brand other people “belief” thing as crazy as we all know the history of Christianity, the cannibal label and now the zombie Jesus.
Bad enough being a RINO but I guess it better than being in the devil’s club, , where is their clubhouse?
I propose that today be a Never Trump day on this site. After that we can return to the usual Always Trump and Infallible Trump comments that is the norm here.
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Already anticipated you, Geology Man:
“Vain Imaginings of Men or Word Of GAWD?????”
“Show me SCRIPTURE!!!!!”
— Pastor Raul Rees Calvary Chapel West Covina, any time someone tried to reason with him
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“The vast majority of the folks in the pews don’t read much anymore.” They clutch their Bibles as a pagan would clutch an amulet or talisman. That’s about all there is to it.
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Well, The Trump whom Evangelicals Worshippeth is VERY into Loyalty Tests…
Two Plus Two Equals Five, Comrades?
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“Well financed?” You’re kidding Christiane
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” I think YECism would have long since faded into sectarian oblivion but for the fact the movement is well financed and well connected politically on the Right.”
Any idea WHY the movement is well financed and well connected on the Right?
It’s craziness.
Lately, there is such pressure within the Right for its members to avoid any channels outside of Fox News, and avoid certain journalists. And DT himself is telling people not to believe what they see. (?) So, I’m wondering if all of this ‘belief’ thing that is forced is not some kind of loyalty test. I mean if you AGREE to give up your own perception and your common sense in order to embrace some ridiculous nonsense, just in order to prove your loyalty, you would think people would have more sense of their own dignity than to jump into that craziness.
now, if you don’t want me to go political, feel free to think ‘DT’ stands for Die Teufel 🙂
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“Could God have instantly created humans with the same ubiquitous genes in the same sequence as the great apes? Could God have permitted viral infections that took the exact same positions in apes that they took in humans?”
And there are many more scientific questions like this we could ask, where what God could have done is contrary to the consensus scientific evidence. My response is also always sure, he could have. But, I believe that would render God “deceitful”, which is contrary to His nature. If God gave us all this scientific evidence that paints a particular picture, and creation is said to reveal who He is, then it would be misleading to have the truth/reality be something else altogether (unless we’re talking about a specifically-mentioned miracle such as the resurrection or one that is perhaps experienced first-hand).
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A fat post stuffed full of tasty morsels to chew over.
We’re going to have to abandon the last vestiges of our fundamentalism. Paul can be right but he can also be wrong. He was living in the first century. All his views are filtered through that conceptual framework. That’s why we need scholars. To help us understand that first century intellectual framework and to see how it applies or doesn’t apply to our time and our way of thought. This means we cannot be passive consumers but we have to engage the text. If all we want is spiritual ‘infotainment’ then we’re quickly going to be lost and confused.
I do wonder if this preference for spiritual infotainment is behind the current movement in some circles for what amounts to a “Bible-less” Christianity. The latest manifestation of this approach is Andy Stanley’s view of the OT. Face it, the vast majority of the folks in the pews don’t read much anymore. And the Bible is not an easy read on the best of days. So the impetus for a “Jesus only” church. Read a few familiar verses on occasion but avoid all those disturbing issues raised by any serious analysis of the Bible.
Finally, I think YECism would have long since faded into sectarian oblivion but for the fact the movement is well financed and well connected politically on the Right.
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Mike the G Man, I really liked this concise and lucid information you provided. I say this as I have limited science background , I am still working on why M and M’s melt in your mouth not your hand experiment and developing my “Cheeto” glove to reduce orange fingers.
Personally I believe the figures given to “evangelicals” personally believing in evolution like the Bradley effect. When polled the YEC affirmative is given but it is in a “special” compartment where they know it may not be literally true but do not want to question the Bible. In other words , they have no problem personally with going along with the historical narrative but it really is no big deal, they have reconciled with no public acknowledgment . As time progresses and good work is done like presented here , when the beliefs and “feelings” of the evangelicals are thoughtful engaged they will be a shift to remove this issue and get on with the story of salvation.
I think it will end up as Adam and Eve were the first “humans” not homo sapiens etc, all the science lineage but the first people who believed in a higher power. All that came before them were not in the image of God but they were the beginning of true belief.
It does go back to when I was a child , thought as a child and we as humans grow and expand our knowledge.
I do believe many believe that once the validity of the Bible is questioned or deemed “impossible” that is the slippery slope that will lead to there is no God.
I, as usual have mangled my thoughts but do find this piece a good summary and a respectful look at the issue, thank you again.
I have recently had to halt my M and M experiment as my control group was eaten by my grandkids.
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