A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

A flood in Sumer comparable to any of these catastrophic Floods you refer to, would have been capable of wiping out the entire population living in the area of man’s first civilization. Thus, I agree that such a flood could be considered evidence fitting the teaching of the New Testament (Jesus Christ, St. Peter, and the Letter to the Hebrews) about Noah’s Flood.

Even if, as far as I know there is no evidence for such a flood, I think it is highly interesting to continue our discussion by making the following assumption:

In Sumer around 3000 BC there was a flood capable of wiping out 200,000-500,000 people living in the area, although the archaeological evidence has not yet brought this fact to light.

For me the important point is that at this time there were 10-14 million Homo sapiens individuals living on the planet outside the flooded region.

Using your words, I would like to state:

The population of 200,000-500,000 people who perished in the flood

By contrast, the 10-14 million Homo sapiens creatures outside the flooded region

At a certain moment at the end of the flood, God made all these Homo sapiens to children of God, “with the crucial understanding that makes us human”, but lacking the original righteousness A&E had when God created them; in other words, these new “children of God” were in state of need of redemption (the same state of Noah and his family shared). Since this very moment each Homo sapiens creature is a human being in the image of God, but needing redemption, as if he were fallen into sin.

Do you agree to this interpretation?

My assumption would change the date of the flood to anywhere in a range between 3,500 BC and 9,000 BC (or even earlier), since we have evidence of human habitation in some cities going back to 9,000 BC.

But I do not believe in equating our humanity to a biological species. I believe we have two inheritances, the biological one from our brethren in the animal kingdom and a memetic one from God responsible for bringing the human mind to life and bringing about human civilization. A memetic inheritance is not however limited to genetic descent but would spread throughout the species as ideas do much much faster than the growth of a population.

Wrong story. The beginning of humanity was Adam and Eve. The flood was merely the demise of the first human civilization before it spread to the rest of the world in Genesis 11. It just wasn’t this creationist idea of a population growth from a single couple but rather the influence of ideas spreading around the world – ideas which had the tendency of making those who brought these ideas into giants among men, men of renown, leaders of human civilization.

Not exactly.

The memetic inheritance came through Adam and Eve and the self destructive habits of sin came with it.

The image of God is in the nature of life itself, with its capacity to become more through growth and learning. Therein lies our infinite potential which is the mirror image of God’s infinite actuality. But life is highly quantitative and so their is a vast difference in potential going from the microbe, to the plant, to the animal, and to man. With God’s communication with Adam and Eve, bringing the human mind to life, this was a thousand fold jump in our life and potential as demonstrated by the change in human life in mere thousands of years compared to the millions of years required for evolution. Thus it is with the birth of the human mind that we became the children of God made for an eternal relationship where there is not end to what we can receive from God and no end to what God can give to us. In the words of Genesis, it is the difference between merely “good” and “very good.”

The relationship of parent and child had already begun. The tragedy of these self destructive habits were a part of that relationship and something which God had to find some means to correct.

The historical estimates of the world population for the range you propose is 5-7 million. So for the question we are discussing the difference between your assumption and my assumption is not relevant.

Like you, I do not equate humanity to the biological species Homo sapiens.
It seems to me we both agree in the following claim:

If one goes back in evolution the borders of the species Homo sapiens become more and more blurred and one cannot define a distinct beginning of this species by biological means. By contrast humanity as “mankind in the image of God” begins clearly at the moment of “God’s communication with Adam and Eve” to “bring the human mind to life” and to make humans “to children of God”.

I also agree with you that:

You explain this “spreading” as follows:

I understand your explanation in this way:

At the end of the flood, Noah and his family started to interact physically with the population of Homo sapiens living outside the region of “the first human civilization”, that is, creatures which had not been affected by the flood. Through this relationship with Noah and his descendants, these Homo sapiens became children of God. The so increased population of children of God came in contact with further surrounding Homo sapiens population, which thereby became children of God too, and so on and so forth.

By this way, at a certain moment the whole Homo sapiens species scattered throughout the planet became “mankind in the image of God”. In other words, by means of relationship (“memetic inheritance”, not necessarily genealogical one) each Homo sapiens creature on earth became a child of God, but as part of that relationship self-destructive habits became transmitted as well.

Please let me know whether I am interpreting you correctly.

You seem to understand the gist of my explanation.

Many thanks for this.

I am happy to see that we agree in the following two points:

  1. By creating Adam and Eve as children of God, God aims to create a kind of life (human life) that is essentially (“thousand times”) more valuable than “the anything else on the planet”, in particular the life of non-human animals.

  2. Thereafter God aims to create the same kind of life anytime He acts:

  • to transform other Homo sapiens creatures into children of God, and

  • to ensure that the genealogical descendants of the children of God come into existence as children of God as well.

A main difference between your and my explanation seems to be the following one:

According to Genesis 9:3-6 I claim that at the end of Noah’s flood all the millions of Homo sapiens creatures scattered throughout the planet became children of God, that is, God made them to humans in the image of God like Noah and his family. Thus, since the end of Genesis’ flood humanity (“mankind in the image of God”) equates the biological species Homo sapiens.

By contrast you seem to claim that even in our days there could be in principle uncontacted tribal people who are not yet children of God, but will acquire this status only when they come in contact with some children of God coming from outside the tribe.

Am I interpreting you correctly regarding this last claim?

Oh just like magic!

No, I don’t believe in magic.

Oh you mean like if aliens came and stole some sperm and eggs and then raised up the test tube babies then would they be aliens or human? They would be aliens. They would not be human. And likewise if aliens who looked just like us came down and implanted one of their kind in a woman’s womb so that he was born and grew up among us (like the superman story), would he be an alien or a human being? He would be a human being not an alien. And no magic from God would be required in any of that to convert them in either case.

But perhaps you mean something more like I addressed in the other thread…

Oh and many animals have some portion of the same potential as shown by how they acquire many human characteristics in long association with us. There are some definite limits to this showing that the long evolution of the homo sapiens species is not without some significance. But as many works of science fiction have explored, there is a distinct possibility that we may find some means to change them or compensate for those difference so that some are capable of becoming even more human. I simply don’t need some magical theological barrier between animal and human the way you seem to.

On the basis of the Genesis’ passages it is fitting to assume that at the moment when “God created mankind in the image of God” there were millions of Homo sapiens creatures scattered throughout the planet.

Are you claiming that God transformed all these creatures into human beings in the image of God at one and the same time?

“The theological barrier between animal and human” I assume is nothing other than that of Genesis 9:3-6. The Biblical view is that humans are radically different from animals.

I think this view is the basis of any coherent morality and the Rule of Law.

If you give up this barrier you are opening the door to any kind of discrimination, racism, and social Darwinism.

Notice that definitions of man like “rational animal” and “political animal” is “ancient Greek philosophy”, not Biblical one. According to the Bible man is primarily “the image of God”.

According to my explanation “aliens who looked just like us” are just as human and as children of God as we are. Accordingly, their children are human and children of God in any case. And any embryos resulting from fertilizing human eggs with human sperm are human beings and children of God, independently of they are raised up by “earthly” humans or “alien” ones.

You have to be careful: If you start claiming that earthly humans and human-looking aliens do not share the same humanity, you will end claiming that civilized and indigenous people, or white and black people, do not share the same humanity.

The bible states that God created mankind in His image. We do not have additional information with the exception of the days of creation.

The distinction that you seem to miss is hearing and understanding God’s name, and this occurred with Adam and Eve and subsequently from them after they were evicted.

I cannot see anything biblical that would help you, with what seems to me, an attempt to put an evolutionary spin to the biblical account. Noah spoke to his populace regarding their wickedness and the catastrophe to come; again humans heard but did not believe.

Exactly!
And my question is:
What does the term ‘mankind’ in this biblical statement mean?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

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And I believe that human beings are radically different. I just don’t believe that the difference is anything magical, but something very much explainable. You want radically different? How about a completely different form of life altogether. Animals are biological organisms. We are not. Our bodies are biological organisms. But the human mind is something quite different – physical, but life in a different medium. It is the same basic self-organizing process called life. But for biological organisms, the medium in which this process occurs is biochemistry, just as the medium for the information coding of its means of inheritance is in the chemical composition of DNA molecules. The medium in which this self-organizing process occurs in the case of the human mind is language and that is also where the information coding for its means of inheritance is to be found. Adopting the terminology coined by Dawkins the human mind is an example of memetic life.

I do think a genetic definition of humanity has some philosophical issues connected with racism and eugenics, but this doesn’t automatically or necessarily lead to discrimination. I don’t see why you have to exclude the possibility of animals crossing the barrier to exclude this. And I see no connection with actual discrimination or with social Darwinism. Social Darwinism largely derives from failing to understand the whole process of evolution. Frankly, the connection you are making here, suggests a profound lack of respect for the rest of life on the planet which many people do not share.

With the way I draw the line, I get the best of both worlds – where human beings are BOTH the brethren of all living creatures on the earth because of our bodies, AND the children of God because of our minds – two different inheritances at the same time.

This characterization of the Bible is a gross exaggeration. The Bible only refers to man as "image of God 3 times and all of them in the book of Genesis.

It was Aristotle who called man by these terms and evolution has shown that Aristotle was correct – it just goes to show how much of a genius he really was. Biologically and in our bodies we have a common ancestry with the animals. And it is because of evolution that this way of speaking has become popular in modern times. It is the disrespect for the rest of life on this planet by the Abrahamic religions which has thankfully fallen into disfavor.

Yes. You have a problem with the other side of what I said: “if aliens came and stole some sperm and eggs and then raised up the test tube babies then would they be aliens or human? They would be aliens.” Are you only looking at the surface? What if a couple living alone in the wilderness found a alien infant who looks nothing like us but raised this child as their own – would the child be human? I say yes, because our humanity is not to be found in either our biology or our physical shape. It is in how we think and that comes from how we are raised and the memetic inheritance this imparts to us. And I would say that that those in end of movie called “A.I.” descended from our robots left behind long after have we have become extinct are also human, because they have inherited from our culture and thinking even if they don’t have our biological inheritance.

Oh I certainly think it is possible for there to be homo sapiens who are not the least bit human, like I just said above. I don’t think there are any on the planet at this time. I do think there were groups such as cannibals who did indeed lack a good portion of our humanity. So no I don’t think all it takes is a genetic similarity to make us human. But I also explained that for “most things it is the potential for humanity which has our regard and duty for care, generosity, and protection.”

Genesis 2:7 God formed the body of man from the stuff of the Earth and then provided the divine breath or inspiration to bring his mind into life. Body and mind – that is what this term ‘mankind’ in this Biblical statement means, NOT the biological species homo sapiens.

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Good day Antoine,

If I may jump in here, it is pleasant to see you and @GJDS honing in on the topic you have now reached. I was following earlier when Nikolai Propo posted about Teilhard de Chardin, and was curious to see you had not come into contact previously with Marshall McLuhan. Perhaps we could return to that at some point in case MM might have something valuable to offer here. My “position” on this topic appears generally closer to yours and @GJDS’ than it does to BioLogos’, at least as much as I understand it so far. Probably then it makes sense to connect with you here in this thread to see if it’s possible we might find common ground or shared meanings on this difficult theme.

That would be a unique, unrepeated event in human history then, as I understand you. Is it right? And it’s not a “strictly scientific”, or even purely physical question, but rather one relating to Scripture and theology first and foremost. And Protestant evangelical theology is not the only option, when both Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology are available. Are we on the same page about that also?

In either case, my “nice to meet you!” question to you has to do with both how far you are wanting to push the term “evolution” when it comes to theological anthropology, and at what point you are satisfied and ready to drop it as irrelevant. Would you say, for example, that the “imago Dei” itself “evolved” over time, or do you prefer to call that “certain moment” you speak about in the Tradition, when "these creatures did become ‘relevant human beings in the image of God’,” a “direct creative act”? Or is it a both/and, rather than an either/or?

“The distinction that you seem to miss is hearing and understanding God’s name, and this occurred with Adam and Eve and subsequently from them after they were evicted.” - GJDS

Would this refer to God calling people by name, including life as a “vocation” or “calling”?

What you wrote reminded me of the sheep analogy in Scripture. For example, Psalm 95:7, then in John: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” That does indeed offer a different look at the Garden of Eden story, than taking a strictly biological or naturalistic approach would, such as using an “evolutionary” view of human beings and arguing about speculative “big history”.

Here instead we have a more specific and testable “little history” dialogue (more personal like Jordan Peterson’s psychology of Genesis video series, than reading it as “secular literature”, with some community-orientation and Tradition that he hasn’t yet displayed - next step Exodus). Who is speaking in it (God and humans, or just gods and humans, and angels and…?) is of crucial significance for us, and seems to reach to the core of some of the issues raised in this thread. Glad to join in with you folks here.

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Hello mitchellmckain,

Just realized that I wrote above about MM referring to Marshall McLuhan, while you are also MM. Respectfully, I will call you by the handle you use to make sure there is no ambiguity.

Do you mean memetics or mimetic life? The first is different from “memes” as now commonly used. Are you familiar with the differences between them and the pre-Dawkins usage of “mimesis”?

“I see no connection with actual discrimination or with social Darwinism. Social Darwinism largely derives from failing to understand the whole process of evolution.”

Social Darwinism was an outgrowth of some ideas expressed by Darwin, as well as those by Spencer, Huxley, Galton, and others. Darwin wrote about morality and society also, though in a non-philosophical and non-sociological way. Social Darwinism derives from wanting to control, not “the whole process of evolution” because that would be impossible, but rather the reigns of power in human society. King or Queen of the hill, survival of the fittest, struggle for life, etc. The current form of social Darwinism being proposed today is a type of neo-eugenics that does indeed still use such conflict-oriented metaphors as Darwin, with a kind of Kropotkin gloss of “mutual aid” over them…

I must admit I agree with Antoine here:

“If you give up this barrier you are opening the door to any kind of discrimination, racism, and social Darwinism.” - AntoineSuarez

“because of evolution that this way of speaking has become popular in modern times. It is the disrespect for the rest of life on this planet by the Abrahamic religions which has thankfully fallen into disfavor.” - mitchellmckain

So, in short, you view Abrahamic religions as being “wrong” about “other animals” because of “evolution”, is that a correct way to interpret what you wrote? If so, that would appear to be a wish to eradicate historical Christian teachings, which doesn’t seem consistent with BioLogos’ mission. The many Jews, Christians, Muslims & Baha’is that I’ve met who deeply respect “the rest of life on this planet” would surely not agree with your claim of “disfavor”. Could you please clarify, as surely I must have misunderstood, and you’re not actually misanthropic or saying Gen 1:26 needs to be tossed out due to “dominion”?

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I definitely mean memetic not mimetic. This has nothing to do with mimesis which is about mimicry. I even made a reference directly to Dawkins who coined the term “meme” in analogy to the gene, for the transmission of ideas via human communication. Atheists have had a long tradition of coopting the ideas and terminology of Christian philosophers like Kierkegaard and Pierce to practically hijack these for their rhetoric. It is about time that a Christian did the same with the ideas of atheists.

Yes. Early days in both evolutionary theory and our understanding of the philosophical implications. For more explanation see here where I explained…

Not only will you find symbiotic relationships in the earliest of ecosystems but the cooperation implicit in multicellular organisms was a key step in evolution. Any close examination of the human body reveals that we are literally built of cooperative symbiotic relationships. There are also hints that eukaryotic cells evolved from prokaryotic in a similar way by symbiosis and cooperation. And when you go to prebiotic evolution I think the cooperation of different chemical cycles was a key part of the formation of life itself.

NOW consider the implications of this. The old social Darwinist idea about society’s protection of its weaker members being an obstacle to evolution is revealed to be pure nonsense. Evolution is not even driven by natural selection as they supposed, but by variation. And society’s protection of its weaker members increases variation. We don’t all have to be Daniel Boones surviving on our own in the wilderness. We now take thousands of different roles in cooperative efforts which enrich everyone’s life. Thus instead of halting evolution this has greatly accelerated it, which is pretty obvious to anyone looking at how fast things are changing in the world.

Which only means that you share some of his presumptions propping up that sort of logic. I have made it clear that I do see a radical difference between man and animals without any need to resort to divine magic. But at the same time I also accept the profoundly close relationship between man and animals as discovered by evolution.

It is one of the sad facts about the Abrahamic religions that it has a very poor record when it comes to taking care of the environment of the earth and having respect for nature. It truth, there is, of course, a foundation for dealing with the passages of scripture differently, seeing us a stewards over life on the Earth rather than merely exploiters of so much raw material. It is reason to see some divine providence in other religions for balancing that out. And yes, as you have pointed out, this is a way of thinking which has gained wide support in the members of Abrahamic religions also (after all I am included in that number).

No, of course not. Nor am I a humanist. I am a Christian. Thus I can see problems with both misanthropy and humanism. My highest values are love and life… which I see as essentially the purpose of God in creating the universe. I certainly do not support the humanist idea of mankind, for its own sake, as the highest value. And the problem with God as the highest value is that this effectively gets translated as religion uber alles and I think Isaiah chapter 1 is a good refutation of the idea that God would support any such thing.

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The short answer is that mankind is made in the image of God, and thus those made in the image of God are termed humanity.

The long answer would deal with the spirit of mankind, comprehending spiritual matters and responding (for good or bad) to knowledge of God, His name, meaning and salvation.

I should add that we come to a full comprehension of humanity, being according to God’s will in Jesus Christ. As Paul has stated, the spirit of man understands the things pertaining to mankind, and the Spirit of God the things of God, but those in Christ have the mind of Christ (much theology has been written on these matters). :smile:

I had in mind Adam and Eve communicating their time in the garden with God to others, and this communication eliciting a spiritual response from those outside of the garden. Cane and Able are a good example, where they both could approach God, but one responded with murder. I think these type of events occurred over a large area and culminated in Noah and the flood.

Welcome to the thread Gregory, and thanks for your thoughtful questions!

Yes, in my view, making human beings in the image of God is “a direct creative act” on the part of God always :

  • In the beginning, the first time God made Homo sapiens creatures to adult human beings in the image of God (“Adam and Eve”);

  • Thereafter, at the moment referred to in Genesis 9:3-6 when (according to me) God made all the millions of Homo sapiens creatures scattered through the planet to adult human beings in the image of God;

  • And in our days, anytime a new human being in the image of God comes into existence as an embryo.

This “direct creative act” has no physical observable consequences but is rather a spiritual endowment: God endows the human being with the capability of freely loving God, which also includes sense of law (knowledge of good and evil) and consciousness of being accountable for one’s own deeds.

This spiritual endowment is at the origin of the civilizations. This is why I say that Cuneiform writings containing contracts and registers are clear signs that “God’s creation of humans in the image of God” did already happen. And once this creation was completed (Genesis 9:3-6), then all people on earth, be they civilized or not, are in the image of God, children of God.

Consequently, the “imago Dei” itself did not “evolve” over time. Nonetheless nothing speaks against the following Assumption :

Between the creation of “Adam and Eve” and the moment at the end of Noah’s flood when God makes all the millions of Homo sapiens creatures in the image of God (Genesis 9:3-6), God made a number of Homo sapiens creatures dwelling “outside the Garden” to human beings in the image of God, who then got married and had children with those living “inside the Garden”.

This assumption is supported by the episode of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2-4.

Please let me know whether this address your queries or you wish further clarification.

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For the sake of completeness, one should also refer to these two quotes in the Old Testament:

  • Wisdom of Salomon 2:23

  • Sirach 17:3

Since these two books are considered canonical in a number of versions within Christianity.

As regarding the New Testament, one can say that all the writings are about the image of God at the end of the day, because:

  • Hebrews 1:3: His Son [Jesus Christ] is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance.

  • Colossians 1:15: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

But for me these have no more authority than popular movies or works of fiction like Dante’s inferno or the Da Vinci Code.

Those are about Jesus not mankind. Which underlines the Genesis claim that mankind was created in the image of God, not that he remains so. That would only be Adam and this recalls that Jesus is named the 2nd Adam.

Thus it remains an exaggeration to say that according to the Bible mankind is primarily “the image of God.” According to the Bible, man is primarily just a creation of God like all the other plants and animals. But part of why you make a big deal of this is that you attach such a different meaning to the words than I do. For you it seems to be all about human rights and a reason for treating people different from animals, while for me the “image of God” stuff is about purpose for which God created mankind, i.e. for an eternal relationship of parent and child.

Nevertheless, I do believe we ARE radically different from the animals AND we are closely related to them – it is both. As far as our bodies go, we ARE animals. And most of our abilities are shared by various animals. Only in the human mind are we radically different. But the life of the human mind is not so firmly established, and our status is likewise dubious. I certainly don’t believe in your divine magical transformations or endowments. It is our own choices which is our essence and not something inserted into us by God. Otherwise the problem of evil brings theism down and atheism would make more sense.

Another reason I am not buying into this rational that a God given difference from the animals is so essential for human morality is that atheists have no problem with morality without such a philosophical prop. In fact, many of them see all this as devaluing human beings and they reject god(s) and religion in order to uphold a greater morality.

This amounts to say that the writer of Genesis used the term ‘mankind’ to mean human beings looking like the human beings at the time of writing, that is, about 2500 years ago (500 BC).

Additionally, we are taught by evolutionary science that Homo sapiens reaches the full set of features we see in living people today at the end of the Pleistocene about 12,000 ago.

Finally, the Genesis narrative (Gen 6-9) supports the idea that man’s first civilization was completely wiped out in Noah’s flood.

From all this we are led to conclude that the beginning of “humanity” in the sense of “mankind in the image of God” has to be set between 12,000 BC and 3,300 BC (emergence of writing in Sumer).

The historical estimation of the Homo sapiens population for this time is 5-10 million.

So we can’t help asking whether or not all these creatures became in the image of God at the same time as “Adam and Eve”.

In summary, evolutionary science prompts us to ask new questions to Scripture, and so improve our understanding of Revelation. And the other way around, Genesis 9:3-6 help us to understand that the quality of “image of God” makes humans radically more valuable than animals (homicide is forbidden while humans are allowed to use animals for food), and explains why evolution worked to bring about a sharp anatomical difference between humans and animals, so that we can clearly distinguish which creature is human and which is not. After Genesis 9:3-6 humanity is called to “evolve” guided by morality and law, and “despise Darwinian natural selection as a motto for how we should live”.

For me it is wonderful to see how Genesis and evolution dovetail into one another!