In the visible decaying organism of your mother you were able to see the invisible eternal: Her personal identity stubbornly underpinning her transient genetic, pre-wired nature, your mother.
And this moved you to care for her, expressing your faith in love.
I don’t know what you may have learned about yourself in caring for your mother. But in any case sinful feelings and propensities do not matter for God at all, if you counter them with deeds of love.
How can you be “damned with that now”, if Jesus will judge us by claiming “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”?
In fact, in your mother’s dying breath Jesus himself was breathing his last.
It is God himself who establishes the link, as biblical revelation clearly speaks:
“And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.” (Genesis 9: 5-6).
Because God made humankind in the image of God, human beings are called to be God’s representatives on earth and live loving and respecting each other. The prohibition of homicide is a straightforward consequence of this commandment of love.
This is exactly what I claim too!
The “line” was “abundantly clear” for the biblical audience at the time Genesis was written, about 2,600 BP.
This “abundantly clear line” was presupposed by the declaration of Genesis 9:3,5-6, to the aim that: “each human being is accountable to God for the life of another human being”, but humankind is allowed to use non-human animals for food.
‘Humankind’ is a relational concept: ‘Humankind’ begins to exist only when the line between existing Homo sapiens and existing primates became “abundantly clear”, that is, as clear as it is today.
For the time before the line between “existing Homo sapiens ” and “existing primates” was “abundantly clear”, Homo sapiens remains a fuzzy biological category. Thus, it is equivocal to use it to designate “human beings today” and “earlier hominins” as if they were the same biological species.
I apologize for repeating: Recent research challenges “our use of terms such as ‘archaic H. sapiens’ and ‘anatomically modern humans’.“
For the biblical audiences of all times the term “humankind in the image of God” refers to Homo sapiens at a moment when “the line between existing Homo sapiens and other existing primates” was “abundantly clear”. If the difference between human beings and animals had not yet been “abundantly clear” for the audience, the declaration of Genesis 9:3, 5-6 (containing the prohibition of murder) would have been confusing. Accordingly, before the moment this difference was “abundantly clear”, it was not fitting that God commanded “Homo sapiens and earlier hominins” to live respecting each other. And this means that before this moment “Homo sapiens and earlier hominins”, no matter how intelligent and smart these creatures may have been, could not have been ordered to eternal life.
And this explains while the biblical revelation says nothing in this respect.
As a matter of fact, the first writing coincides with cuneiform tablets containing contracts, registers, and law, and thereby awareness of moral and legal accountability.
We consider “people groups today” in the image of God and deserving human rights because they are Homo sapiensafter the time God made this lineage in the image of God. But for ascertaining this time writing systems are paramount. Had humanity not developed written law at all, could human morality not be considered universal and would it reduce to animal in-group morality.
And yet you claim that at the time when Genesis was written “the line between existing homo sapiens and other existing primates was abundantly clear”, that is, as clear as it is today.
So, you yourself admit we can know!
Indeed, the crucial question is:
At which time “the line between existing homo sapiens and other existing primates” became as clear as it is today or, equivalently, it was at the time Genesis was written?
Can we answer this question on the basis of the available data?
The answer is YES, namely:
At the time when Homo sapiens and chimps are already well defined lineages and there is no intermediate variety whatsoever (Neanderthal, Denisovan, Flores, or others) in between. And this means later than 12,000BP .
Natural selection is continuous, but natural deletion introduces discontinuity in evolution: Through elimination of intermediate varieties evolution lays the groundwork for the appearance of humankind as a community ruled by morality and law.
Accordingly, the “prohibition of murder” as established in Genesis 9:3, 5-6 makes sense only after 12,000 BP.
I completely agreed. But on the other hand: We should also be perfectly content being certain about things that can be supported with evidence!
"God revealing that humans are created in the image of God” means "God revealing that humans are called to live loving and respecting each other”, and therefore, “from this point on”, they are submitted to the prohibition of murder. This is exactly what revelation utters in Genesis 9:3, 5-6.
God provides humanity with all revelation that matters for eternal life, to the aim of filling the kingdom of heaven. Clear proof of this is that God provided humanity the revelation of the existence of angels and their fall. If God didn’t explicitly reveal us that “earlier homo sapiens and other hominins” are in the image of God and called to eternal life, we can safely conclude that God didn’t count on them to fill the places in “the great banquet of heaven”.
We assume that lions are “innocent of sin” as predators because the Bible does not declare them to be in the image of God, i.e.: submitted to the commandment of loving and respecting each other.
In fact, Genesis 9:5 clearly states that animals should not kill humans, but it doesn’t specifically forbid lions and chimps to kill other lions, respectively other chimps!
We are talking about two different discourses, science and theology. They are allowed to use the same terms in different ways. In theology people aren’t concerned with biological species. In science people aren’t concerned with image of God. There is no reason why both disciplines can’t talk about “humanity” in the ways appropriate to their discourse context.
Knowing that we are currently on one side of a transition and identifying a point in history as on the same side of a transition is not the same thing as knowing when exactly the transition happened or positing “a line” at the transition point.
I could have figured out lions were morally innocent for eating antelope without the Bible. I don’t believe they are morally accountable for killing humans either.
Frist of all I would like to thank you for continuing this conversation: I think your comments are leading us to a better understanding of both, science and theology.
Today the biological species are distinct: The difference between today’s existing humans and existing chimps is “abundantly clear”, as you rightly state. Actually, in science we take this distinctness as the standard for defining Homo sapiens and the other species.
In science we are taught that:
Homo sapiens and chimps today are two lineages that evolved by tiny leaps from common ancestors in the past.
The difference between these two lineages became as clear as it is today only in recent times, by about 12,000 BP, as a result from the disappearance of a huge number of intermediate varieties.
Clear signs revealing “universal moral principles” and “ accountability relationship” appear by about 5,300 BP with the emergence of writing.
These Points 1-3 regarding science entail that:
The further we go back in evolutionary history to times earlier than 12,000 BP, the fuzzier Homo sapiens becomes as a biological category to describe the biological reality, to the extent that recent research challenges “our use of terms such as ‘archaic H. sapiens’ and ‘anatomically modern humans’.“
This means that “humankind today” as a species does not originate from a single group of “earlier hominins”, and it is equivocal to use the term “Homo sapiens” to designate “humans today” and “earlier hominins” as if they were the same biological species .
In theology we are taught by biblical revelation in Genesis 9:3,5-6 that:
God created humankind in the image of God as a community ruled by the commandment of mutual love and respect, and therefore submitted to the prohibition of murder.
The prohibition against homicide presupposes that the difference between humankind and chimps at the time of the creation of humankind in the image of God was as clear as it is at later times when this prohibition holds, in particular today.
This Point 2 regarding theology clearly shows that in theology we are very much concerned with biological species, as the universal prohibition against homicide in Genesis 9:5-6 relies on the “abundantly clear difference” between Homo sapiens and non-human animals from the moment of its proclamation by God: Since this moment each Homo sapiens creature is a human being in the image of God and accountable to God for the life of another human being. This biblical teaching is the very foundation of law and a defense of humanity against any discrimination.
Moreover, science help us to a deeper understanding of Scripture. Indeed, Genesis reveals us that God created humankind in the image of God, but does not explicitly tells the time when God did this. However, if one reads what we are taught by theology in Point 2 in the light of what we are taught by science in the Points 2 and 3 above, one reaches the conclusion that God made humankind into a community of beings called to live respecting each other later than 12,000 BP but not later than 5,300 BP.
On the other hand, the principle that humans ought to live respecting each other should also be considered relevant for scientists, the very condition for the possibility of scientific work: By establishing the clear difference between humans and animals, evolution lays the groundwork for ensuring law, assigning rights, and thereby a science that truly serves humanity. One can call this “a fortunate accident”, as Richard Dawkins does. But it is equally legitimate to say that God guided evolution by means of a highly complex ecological regulation to bring about the conditions making it possible for humankind to be ruled by the commandment of mutual respect (the “Golden Rule”), and from the time these conditions were in place, God reveals this commandment to (“writes” it on the heart of) each human being coming into existence. To this extent, in science we are concerned with the fact that humans are in the image of God after all.
True enough!
From the perspective of revelation there is a point in history when “God made humankind in the image of God”, that is, a community of human beings called to live loving and respecting each other, the same way as it is a point in history when the Son of God became flesh. The commandment that humans should live respecting each other entails the universal prohibition against homicide proclaimed in Genesis 9:3,5-6.
As said, this prohibition presupposes that at the moment of its statement the line between existing Homo sapiens and other existing primates was as clear as it is today and at the time Genesis was written.
The evidence we have for the time being allows us to know that this point in history (“the moment of its statement”) lies between 12,000 BP and 5,300 BP.
Surely this is not the same thing as knowing “the day and the hour” when this point in history happened, but it is a good estimation that shows the interest of reading the Bible in the light of what we know by science. The same way as we can better estimate the date of Jesus Christ’s birth by reading the Gospels in the light of historical and scientific evidence.
I would like to come again to a point that has remained undiscussed:
On this basis, I endorse the following view:
I think this view is supported by you @Christy as well:
Also @mitchellmckain seems to argue along this line to some extent:
So, it seems we may find common ground in the following explanation:
At the end of the flood God definitely re-create the humankind by making all homo sapiens (up to possibly 14 millions) into a population of human beings called to live loving and respecting each other, and therefore accountable to God: “From each human being I [God] will demand an accounting for the life of another human being […] for in the image of God has God made mankind.” (Genesis 9:5-6). As a result, from this moment till today ALL peoples on earth share in the dignity of being in the image of God.
In the light of this explanation one can say that God made first a “beta-version” of humankind, and scheduled the “general release” for after the flood, and this way of doing is clearly motivated by God’s mercy.
You evaluate whether lions are capable of moral reasoning and decision making.
As to the flood I don’t agree with your basic theological message. I don’t think warnings of judgment have anything to do with atonement, since atonement is found only in Christ. I think the message is that judgment is imminent, repentance is required, and God in his grace supplies a means of salvation. Repent and God will be merciful and extend grace is a repeated theme throughout the Bible. I don’t think we are here on earth to atone for wickedness. I think we are here to work as stewards and ambassadors in God’s kingdom, promoting his justice and peace on earth as we live in transforming relationship with God. I don’t think God is oriented toward sin and its elimination, I think he is oriented toward his children whom he loves and all of his good creation whose harmonious flourishing he desires. Sin is a liability, but I don’t think it is the focus of God’s attention and divine plan. I also don’t believe the Flood narrative describes a literal global catastrophe, or that it historically destroyed all humanity (all humanity being image bearers). I think the point of the narrative is to teach theology, not history, and definitely not some kind of genealogy of image bearing humans.
Lions are incapable of moral reasoning and decision making.
Therefore, a lion is not called to live loving and respecting other lions, to the aim of reaching eternal life.
Thus, God did not make lions in the image of God.
But you could apply the same reasoning to human babies to conclude that human babies are not in the image of God as long as they are not capable of moral reasoning and decision making.
Nope. I think image of God is a specific calling given to humans not an entailment of moral decision making capabilities.
I don’t think any creature is “accountable” before God for using capacities it doesn’t have. Lions are not capable of moral reasoning and therefore are not morally accountable. Infants are not capable of moral reasoning and are morally accountable. I don’t think moral accountability is necessarily linked to image of God the way you evidently do. I think the capacity for moral reasoning was a necessary prerequisite for God calling corporate humanity to be his image bearers. But I don’t think one thing entails the other. Saying an infant is created in the image of God is a statement about his or her belonging to corporate humanity, not his or her current or future moral capacities or moral accountability.
I also don’t think humans are offered eternal life because they love well. I think God loves humans and wants live with them forever. The motivation for the gift of eternal life is love and relationship, not God’s desire to offer a really nice reward for moral living.
I fully agree with your theological message regarding the flood, and formulate my “basic theological message” more precisely in the following points by quoting your words:
“God loves humans and wants live with them forever. The motivation for the gift of eternal life is love and relationship, not God’s desire to offer a really nice reward for moral living.”
Accordingly, human beings are called to live loving and respecting each other: “Human beings are on earth to work as stewards and ambassadors in God’s kingdom, promoting his justice and peace on earth as we live in transforming relationship with God”. This is the meaning of the Genesis’ statement that “God made humankind in the image of God”.
God desires “the harmonious flourishing” of humankind and at the very beginning created human beings without any sinful propensity (without “a sinful nature” @Anthony).
When humans dismissed God’s love and sinned, God in his mercy did not throw the sinners to hell but let them on earth to repent and open their hearts to the means of salvation God supplies in his grace through Christ’s atonement.
However, instead of repenting human sinners became more and more corrupt and full of violence (Genesis 6: 5-6, 11-12).
To overcome this generalized sinful state of humanity (“hell on earth”, @mitchellmckain says) God sent the flood: The message of the flood for the sinners of all times is that “judgment is imminent, repentance is required.”
By proclaiming the universal prohibition of homicide in Genesis 9:5-6 at the end of the flood God highlights again at the “new beginning” of humanity that “God loves humans” and wants humans to love and respect each other.
Please let me know whether you may agree to these points above.
I generally agree, yes. I’m not really committed to 3 and my personal thoughts on original sin and how that works and what it entails are ambivalent. I think we are given pictures and metaphors that don’t explain the nitty-gritty and since I’m not that committed to an original couple created sinless, I tend to think of original sin and its effects on humanity in corporate, not individual terms.
All right!
But your latter claim amounts to say that before original sin “humanity in corporate” was sinless. So, be it as “original couple” or as “humanity in corporate”, in the beginning God did NOT create humans with a sinful nature or propensities.
And the reason for this is that:
“God loves humans and wants live with them forever” and “The motivation for the gift of eternal life is love and relationship”.
But I think of that in terms of accountability, not absence of sinful propensities. I said that hypothetically, a human pair that had not been encultured into human community could potentially be free of sinful propensities, but I am personally agnostic that such a pair ever existed.
I don’t think sinlessness is a created state of being, it’s just the absence of making sinful choices. It’s God’s ideal that we live in harmony with him and others, and our sin thwarts that ideal.
The main tenets of my hypothesis are the following:
At some point in the Neolithic God made a pair or a little human population free of sinful propensities and sinful choices, and called them “to live in harmony with Goth and others”.
Short after they were created, these primeval humans thwarted God’s ideal by making a sinful choice, and as a consequence became submitted to sinful propensities.
Since this first sinful choice (“original sin”) all humans come into existence in a sinful humanity and thereby are submitted to sinful propensities as well (are born “with a sinful nature”).
Notwithstanding you may be “personal agnostic” about this hypothesis
I dare to ask:
Do you agree that my hypothesis fits well with revelation and is compatible with the available scientific data?
Yes, I think this fits with revelation and cannot be disproven by science. I think it runs into the same theological problems that have been noted in discussions of the genealogical Adam and Eve model though.
If there was an existing population of humans/homo sapiens and this specially created couple had descendants who mixed with this population, you still have to explain how the fall/original sin affects everyone. It seems to me you would still be getting into questions of who interbreeds with who. And if not, why the specially created couple in the first place? What does it buy you (other than concordism) that a pair of humans chosen out of an existing population doesn’t get you? If you accept evolutionary history, death and violent propensities already exist in the animal kingdom and in human social groups pre-Fall.
Thanks Christy for these comments, which allow me to show that my explanation does not run in the theological problems of @SwamidassGenealogical Adam and Eve (GAE).
According to my explanation God provided that human beings in the image of God and ordered to the gift of eternal life NEVER lived together with Homo sapiens creatures that were not in the image of God and ordered to the gift of eternal life. Accordingly, I state:
Any Homo sapiens creature, who came to live together with the descendants of the “specially created couple” (A&E), by this very fact became a human being specially created in the image of God the same way as A&E were.
The reason is that God wanted to fill the earth with humans that live loving and respecting each other and ordered to the gift of eternal life. To this aim family life and education was crucial. A family where the father (descendant of A&E) would be ordered to go to heaven and the mother (non-descendant from A&E) would NOT (as GAE assumes), would not be fitting to the task of educating the children (genealogical descendants of A&E) “to work as stewards and ambassadors in God’s kingdom, promoting his justice and peace on earth”, and ordered to eternal life. Such a family would really be a strange family!
I would like to stress that:
If in GAE one assumes that both parents are always ordered to the gift of eternal life, GAE becomes equivalent to my explanation, at the end of the day.
(Notice also that I prefer to assume that A&E was “a specially created little population” rather than “a single couple”, but this is not relevant for this discussion so far).
As I have discussed in other posts, the passage of Genesis 6:2-4 referring to the “sons of God” supports my statement above.
As regarding “how the fall/original sin affects everyone”, my explanation runs as follows:
God desired “the harmonious flourishing of humankind” and endowed A&E (whether “single couple” or “couple of couples” it doesn’t matter) with special original grace to totally master the inherited evolutionary selfish urges, so that at the very beginning A&E were completely free of sinful propensities (“concupiscence”).
After their first sinful choice A&E lost this special original grace, and as a result the inherited evolutionary urges became sinful propensities within their hearts. Nonetheless God in his mercy decided to give A&E opportunity to repent and allowed them to remain on earth (instead of throwing them to hell).
Thus, for the sake of redeeming all sinners, the earth was destined by God to be inhabited by people sharing sinful propensities and in need of redemption, according to Romans 11:32 “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
In conclusion: The fall/original sin affects everyone coming into existence after the first human sinful choice by A&E, even if he/she is NOT a genealogical descendant of A&E.
For sure, death and violent propensities did already exist before the Fall. However, by definition, they could neither be sinful nor a consequence of the Fall, as the creatures affected by such deficiencies were not ordered by God to the gift of eternal life, and therefore to live loving and respecting each other in transforming relationship with God; in particular, such creatures were not morally accountable for killing each other, the same way as lions and chimps are not accountable today.
By God’s declaration in Genesis 9:4,5-6, after the fall and at the end of the flood, all Homo sapiens became humankind in the image of God. Since this moment each Homo sapiens creature on earth is called to the gift of eternal life, and deserves the status and dignity of being in the image of God, although without the special original grace A&E had at their creation, and therefore submitted to sinful propensities (concupiscence).
I summary, I think that my explanation above:
Fits well to revelation.
Cannot be disproven by science.
And does not run into the theological problems of @Swamidass’ GAE.
I would be thankful to know any further objection you may have in this respect.
God could very well have made the whole population of Homo sapiens (several millions by the end of the Neolithic) in the image of God at once, ordering each of them to love God and the others, and making each human being accountable for the life of another human being.
However, God in his omniscience, took account of the possibility that humans sin and the sinners disregard that God let them on earth to give them opportunity to repent and reach salvation, to the extreme of living as if God were obliged to accept their sinful ways. God foresaw that humankind could become corrupt and full of violence, and a big remedial would be needed to correct this wicked mentality and avoid “hell on earth”. The flood stands for this remedial. Although sin is a liability, the focus of God’s attention and divine plan is not sin but love: God wants to preserve that people can be redeemed.
This is the message Jesus Christ and the Apostle Peter convey in the context of their teaching about the End Times, and this also what you suggest about the meaning of the flood:
Nonetheless, to avoid killing millions of people, God preferred to make a “first-version of accountable humans” reduced to a little population (i.e.: He transformed only a segment of Homo sapiens into “accountable image bearers”). This primeval population increased in number, possibly to several hundreds of thousands, who chose in fact the path of corruption and violence (Genesis 6: 5-12), and was deleted by the flood (Noah and his family excepted).
At the end of the flood God definitely re-create the humankind by making all Homo sapiens (up to possibly 14 millions) into a population of human beings accountable to God: “From each human being I [God] will demand an accounting for the life of another human being […] for in the image of God has God made mankind.” (Genesis 9:5-6).
By proclaiming this universal prohibition of homicide in Genesis 9:5-6 God highlights again that “God loves humans” and wants that humans love and respect each other. From this moment till today ALL peoples on earth share in the dignity of being in the image of God.
I hope the preceding clarifications show that, like you, I think that “the point of the narrative is to teach theology”.
Nonetheless I also think that the narrative of the flood is historical and describes a global catastrophe that destroyed allhuman beings living at this moment (Noah and his family excepted), where by human beings I mean humans who God had made in the image of God and morally accountable for their deeds.
Notice that catastrophic floods capable of killing hundreds of thousands are common, as @mitchellmckain has fittingly stated in a previous post:
In summary:
I respect your belief that the flood narrative “does not teach history” and “does not describe a literal global catastrophe”, but I dare also to ask in this respect:
Do you agree that my explanation above fits well with revelation and is not discarded by science?