ASA has long been at the forefront of major developing trends in issues of science and Christian faith. Part of our mission is to explore and understand new scientific advances and their implications for our faith. Since 1954, more than two dozen articles have appeared in our journal where “Adam” appears in the title. In the last decade, the human genome project has catapulted the issue of historical Adam and Eve to the forefront. The cover story of the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today describes “The Search for the Historical Adam,” leaning heavily on key publications and talks from the ASA as well as the BioLogos Foundation.
Our goal continues to be to provide a forum for active discussion on seminal topics. The issue of historical Adam and Eve is extremely important to all of us. Scientific data now seem to dispel any alternative theories allowing for a one-couple human ancestry from the biological perspective. How does this impact our faith?
We encourage active and open discussion in this forum by ASA members to reflect the wide spectrum of views within our membership even as we are united in the body of Christ.
Specifically, members are encouraged to use this forum to comment on the following issues:
- Is your own understanding of the Bible in conflict with the scientific views of the origin of humans? Your church’s? How are you dealing with it?
- What actions do you feel are needed to make progress in this issue? What role can ASA play in bringing clarity to this issue?
Terry, I appreciate your comments. I agree that I do not “… really understand the ad hoc-ers” but I’m not sure that you fall in that category. I like very much your statement that “Long ago I learned that we should let the Bible say what it says without twisting it to say something else and that we should let the Creation say what it says without twisting it to say something else. It destroys the integrity of both to do otherwise.” I heatily agree. Perhaps I misused the term, but to me, “ad hoc” simply meant attributing to the Bible what we want it to say and not what it actually says. I’ve always admired your integrity and commitment to the basic core teaching of the Bible. In this case, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying the Bible really does teach common ancestry of a single couple, science really does give strong evidence that biologically this doesn’t work out, and we don’t know how to reconcile that. If so, I’m with you! If that’s not what you mean, then I’ll need more clarification from you.
Bill,
Dennis points out in his paper in the Sept. 2010 issue of PSCF that a key approach is “linkage disequilibrium (LD).” He says ”Since recombination frequency is determined by the physical distance between SNP pairs, LD studies can be used to estimate population sizes over time in a way that mutation-based estimates cannot.”
So the analysis is far deeper than simple mutation rates. Dennis also points out that several independent approaches all lead to similar answers.
Randy
If we know nothing at all about the mechanisms involved in the virginal conception, then we cannot infer that Jesus must have inherited original sin from his mother. And we do not know anything at all about those processes, beyond the fact that they were non-natural. Mary’s genetic contribution could have been altered in such a way as to prevent Jesus from inheriting original sin, yet not so much as to negate her contribution entirely. If so, then original sin can be regarded as (at least partly) a genetic inheritance, without any need to appeal to ancient and erroneous notions of genetic inheritance.
My point was simply that Eve as well as Adam must play a role in the transmission of original sin if one wants to adopt anything like a traditional hereditary model of that has some coherence with modern understandings of conception. Virginal conception does not serve to protect Jesus from inheritance of original sin. One can, indeed, say that “Mary’s genetic contribution could have been altered …”, which is essentially what the RC dogma does. I think, though, that that is problematic on other grounds, not least of which is lack of any scriptural warrant.
If a rank amateur can jump in here, I think George has hit the nail on the head:
“Jesus should be understood to have inherited the same humanity we all have, not some prelapsarian one. “‘Without sin’ means that in our human and sinful existence as a man He did not sin” (Barth). How this was possible has to be something of a mystery for us, although the unimpeded activity of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life no doubt had something to do with it.”
Jesus had to come into the world with same humanity that we have if He was to be “tempted like as we are.” And I would say “the unimpeded activity of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life” had everything to do with it. That’s the difference. We come into the world without the kind of influence that the Holy Spirit has after our repentence and faith (one way to summarize that mystery.) Jesus didn’t. He had perfect fellowship with the Holy Spirit from the beginning.
On a previous point, what bothers me about the idea that spiritual and moral awareness arose gradually is that it seems that a creature must either have the Imago Dei and be responsible before God or not. I don’t see how this can be quantitative. It seems like it must qualitative, but maybe there is a way to think about that I have missed.
Preston -
How one understands the imago dei is of course critical. It can be seen as some ontological quality, & in that case it may be difficult, though not impossible, to see how it could have developed gradually. But it can also be understood as meaning that humans are to be God’s representatives in creation. That certainly seems to be at least part of the thrust of Gen.1:26 – “Let us create humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion …”. (& then “dominion” has to be understood as representing the creator who loves & cares for creation, not as a license to exploit.)
This doesn’t rule out some ontological quality like rationality being part of the imago, an idea with a long theological tradition. Humans have to be rational in order to exercise dominion. But that is something that could have evolved.
In this view bearing the image of God is the vocation of humankind (not just each individual human) rather than primarily a quality each person has. It should then be seen as something to which God calls humans at some epoch when the necessary qualities to fulfill the vocation have developed. This would have been at the point of God’s earliest communication of his will to humans, represented in the 2d creation story in Gen.2:15 – though imago dei language isn’t used there.
George,
I suspect that the Image isn’t just one thing. God is complicated. So are we. I have started reading Augustine’s On the Trinity and Dorothy Sayer’s The Mind of the Maker. Augustine, with his Greek mind, seems to focus on the mind (but I haven’t read it all yet.) Sayers is interested in the human capacity for creativity and she points out that when the Image is first introduced it is God as Creator that is most in focus. She has the only account of a reflection of the Trinity in mankind that I have seen so far that makes much sense, although I’m sure that I don’t understand her fully. If I remember right, hers was the only late- in-history account of a trinity in man that Jacques Barzun saw fit to mention in his Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, which I thought was interesting.
I would be interested to know what your thoughts are on the matter.
One might add that other candidates for what the Imago Dei might be are likewise amenable to a gradual development. I am thinking of candidates like a moral sense, or a capacity for personal communion with God, both of which are prominent in a number of theological traditions.
However, I am still not seeing what is so terrible about Jesus being preserved from a sinful genetic inheritance. The scriptural warrant would be the virginal conception itself, since one might easily wonder why it is necessary. As soon as one asks why Jesus had to be conceived in this unusual way, it is very natural to suppose that it is because he had to be preserved from a genetic inheritance that simply includes sinfulness. Granted, there is no Scripture that states this explicitly, but it does follow reasonably from what Scripture does explicitly state. And indeed, the “unimpeded activity of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life” also preserves Him from sin, but that fact does not alleviate the need to do something about ordinary human genetic inheritance. The perfect fellowship with the Spirit can be accomplished without a virginal conception, so we are still left wondering why Jesus had to be conceived of a virgin.
Preston – I think Sayers’ book is very helpful, especially because she’s was a creative writer herself & not just a critic who commented on the work of others. (Though she does plenty of that as well.) She also doesn’t understand the imago in humans to be a purely mental thing. The emphasis on creativity fits in well with the idea of humanity called to care for creation – to be co-creators in Hefner’s sense. (Or to stick with the literary motif, to be sub-creators, a term Tolkien used.) The only problem I have with her approach is its focus on an individual aspect of the image & neglect of the corporate character of humanity.
John – How do we know that virginal conception was necessary for incarnation? Perhaps God simply chose to do it that way because a unique mode of conception was appropriate for the creator: “And indeed, the altogether peculiar birth of the Lord wasof a virgin alone. [This took place] not as if the lawful union [of man and wife] were abominable, but such a kind of birth was fitting to God. For it became the Creator not to make use of the ordinary method of generation, but of one that was singular and strange, as being the creator.” (Pseudo-Ignatius to Hero, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.1, p.114.)
& you ignore the point I’ve already made, that virginal conception simply doesn’t exclude genetic transmission because the woman contributes as much to that as the man. (In fact more because of mDNA.) I guess one could fall back on Augustine’s idea that original sin is transmitted because of the lust involved in sexual intercourse but that’s not likely to get much purchase today.
There is no need to fall back on Augustine’s idea. All that is needed is the possibility of a virginal conception that does in fact prevent the genetic transmission of original sin. One need not suppose that all virginal conceptions must have that effect, as if it were a necessary truth that being born of a virgin prevents one from inheriting original sin. But if it is possible to prevent the transmission of original sin through the right sort of virginal conception, then it makes sense to think that that is what happened in Jesus’ case. The fact that the woman contributes as much as (and indeed more than) the man does not affect this possibility. Mary’s contribution remains Mary’s contribution, even if it was altered in the appropriate way.