You lost me right here:
The disobedience of Adam and Eve in Genesis, often called “The Fall” needs new interpretation in the light of evolution.
It may (does) need ‘new’ interpretation in light of knowledge of the ANE literature and culture, but not in light of anything scientific.
The dirt has to do with the concept of sacred space. In some long-standing tradition, relics take the place of Naaman’s dirt; in others the consecration of ground in Jesus’ name; in others the promise “where two or three are gathered in My name”; etc.
If that is what you read I need to brush up on my communication skills.
Richard
s/except//p
I actually missed it the first time but he said “in the light of evolution” and not “in light of evolution.” Maybe he meant the same thing but based on his other comments, I’m almost inclined to read this as “in the Light of evolution.”
Vinnie
Thanks for the links. For a long time Commentary of Genesis 2 (Adam and Eve) - #12 by Gerhard I tried to explain to people the poetic structure of the biblical description of reality as to reach an audience that could neither read nor write with a story that allowed those people to form a worldview that allowed people to have a meaningful interaction with reality - which is what worldviews are about. in the discussions of your links I found an article by @Jay313 https://www.academia.edu/47714566/Adam_as_Archetype_Reconciling_a_Historical_Fall_and_Original_Sin_in_the_Context_of_Evolution that lays out what I now understand to be a “jung-ian” biblical interpretation also picked up by Peterson which all go the same direction. (see also my comment below Alternatives to the Adam and Eve origin of sin - #14 by Gerhard . ) so hopefully we can help some people out of their trap to overcome the problem of death before the fall which is probably the main stumbling block for people to accept evolution as an example of God’s handywork.
Thanks for all the comments, and especially Vinnie with the kind criticism of my website post.
I still maintain however, that as the science and evident of evolution casts doubts on historical Adam and Eve we do need new ways of looking at what sin is and can no longer say that sin began literally with them, and nor can their guilt become our guilt.
I have adopted something like an existential approach that looks as how we are and it is of course interesting area of thought to question how we came to be the way we are, self centred and at odd with God and each other etc. I still maintain that kind of view although I concede there are various other ways we may think about this , and hence my original post. We can see our selves as like Adam and Eve but no actual physical descendants. We see their desire to become god-like in knowledge they are actually unprepared for . This is an abiding problem in human discoveries and technology. We also have their unwillingness to face up to the guilt of their transgression, but also the shame they experience.
It is our underdevelopment of our intended nature as Beings in Communion that makes us so continually self -centred , doing what we should not and not doing as we should. Maybe evolution shaped the way we behave but since we know we do have the capacity to be different and more selfless, that remains our responsibility. Our failure of personal development beyond past history is our fault and no one else’s.
Self preservation is an essential for life. It is only communal beings that need to consider others and it is the fact that they are communal that means they already do. Cooperation then becomes an essential for continuation.
Making Sin out to be selfishness is very blinkered and inaccurate. Sin is primarily against God not man.
Trying to account for theology with science is a fool’s errand. They do not intersect.
One is physical and the other is spiritual.
Richard
I disagree
Jesus highlighted two great commandments which if broken are sin.
To fully love God with all our being
To Love our neighbours like we love ourselves
Transgression of the second commandment is a sin against God who asks us to do it.If we carry out selfish acts that harm our neighbours that offends God who has asked us otherwise grow in love. While we have evolved with communal tendencies, like other primates, God asks us to go beyond our communal groups to embrace the outsider as well. We do harms from individual and communal selfishness.
Theology and science do intersect. The physical and the spiritual are connected.
From my view you didn’t actually defend anything you’ve written thus far, only doubled down on it. In all fairness, given the opening post, you might be interested in only discussing alternative views on Adam and Eve for those that share your view that evolution has rendered 2,000 years of Christian historical thinking on the nature of sin and salvation false (not a trivial concept) and modern readers must courageously salvage what they can. I can certainly bow out of that discussion but you did post a link to your personal website so I suspected you would be willing to discuss or defend its contents? If I’m wrong and that was just a shameless plug, let me know.
Why can’t we say human sin literally began with a first pair? You have not shown this. There are several models which allow for a first couple, including the genealogical one and others pointed out in the first book suggested here written by Loren Haarsma. Here is a model by me: How to reconcile Adam and Eve with Modern Science.
Also, who besides modern Christians who do not know what the Church actually teaches on the issue says the guilt of Adam and Eve is our guilt? Maybe some groups believe this but this is hardly the predominant form of original sin in Christendom. Why bring up a straw man? If we think we need a new model of sin, 2,000 years into the Church’s history—which is an absolutely astounding display of intellectual hubris, we should at least try to steel man that which we critique. In my opinion, a good place to start on original sin is the Catholic position which represents the most Christians today and throughout history:
The model you critique is probably a new model, namely the model of the reformers that the Catholic Church rightly rejected.
[quote=“cosmicscotus, post:28, topic:58643”]
I have adopted something like an existential approach that looks as how we are and it is of course interesting area of thought to question how we came to be the way we are, [/quote]
But how are we? You use a lot of fluid terms and ideas without defining or describing them. Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and so on may all disagree on this and the nature of the fall (how we are). From the Catholic Answers link I posted that reprints the New Advent encyclopedia article on original sin:
It is unjust, says another objection, that from the sin of one man should result the decadence of the whole human race. This would have weight if we took this decadence in the same sense that Luther took it, i.e. human reason incapable of understanding even moral truths, free will destroyed, the very substance of man changed into evil. But according to Catholic theology man has not lost his natural faculties: by the sin of [Adam (Adam | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia) he has been deprived only of the Divine gifts to which his nature had no strict right, the complete mastery of his passions, exemption from death, sanctifying grace, the vision of God in the next life. The Creator, whose gifts were not due to the human race, had the right to bestow them on such conditions as He wished and to make their conservation depend on the fidelity of the head of the family. A prince can confer a hereditary dignity on condition that the recipient remains loyal, and that, in case of his rebelling, this dignity shall be taken from him and, in consequence, from his descendants. It is not, however, intelligible that the prince, on account of a fault committed by a father, should order the hands and feet of all the descendants of the guilty man to be cut off immediately after their birth. This comparison represents the doctrine of Luther which we in no way defend.and so on, for example, may view this very differently.
There is no total depravity in Catholic thinking. Humans are wounded because we have been stripped of stabilizing grace. Baptism restores the sanctifying grace in Catholicism but the effects of that privation (concupiscence) remains in regards to the preternatural gifts. The reformers had a different view on this and Eastern orthodox has whats called ancestral sin, which is actually extremely close to the Catholic position. How we are is something that needs to be established before we go about dismantling 2,000 years of Church history.
I disagree with you on hermeneutically and sociologically as a Thomist
You appear to claim the story of Adam of Eve is a myth yet you arbitrarily interpret “their desire for knowledge” as a literal, historical truth about human sin. Why is that specific psychological diagnoses of Adam and Eve not just another detail of the myth itself that shouldn’t be taken seriously like the talking snake? This “existential approach” is not some profound, literal diagnosis of the human condition, but arbitrary cherry-picking.
In reality we are rational beings. The purpose of the intellect is to seek truth and the highest truth is to know God. This is one of our highest natural functions and surely the intent and will of God. I see the pursuit of truth and a desire to learn as a noble endeavor and part of the identity of what it means to be a rational human. I don’t see the fall of humans or humanity resulting from a couple with a desire to learn nor do I see their desire for knowledge to be an analogy for our condition. The most obvious sin in the garden is Adam and Eve disobeying God.
Vinnie
Does He mention the word sin in this context?
Jesus Teaches ideology. He also teaches extreme and hyperbole.
Furthermore, His precise words are almost certainly lost in the mists of time. All we have is memories and maybe consensus. (Dependent on your view of inspired Scripture)
Paul taches against the validation of the law in terms of avoiding sin. Jesus summarised the Law,
Perhaps you are too concerned with human faith and religion.
Richard
I think the Adam and Eve story is both symbolic and historic. Those two trees in the garden do not sound anything like a species of angiosperm and the talking snake is treated symbolically even in the Bible.
Ditto…
In particular, I am opposed to equating sin with disobedience. It is far too convenient for the abuse of religion as a tool of power. Consider these 2 philosophical issues.
I was not raised Christian and thus before I could see any value in Christianity I had to find another meaning for the word sin. With two psychology majors as parents it should be little surprise I found such a meaning in the idea of self-destructive habits.
I think it is a mistake to use the clash between evolution and those who have warped the story of Adam and Eve to make it contrary to evolution as a excuse to dismiss the wisdom communicated in this story.
I see no reason not to take the story as historical, nor any reason to dismiss this is as a good explanation of an estrangement between God and mankind explaining much of what is wrong in the world. Though to be sure, my understanding does not see the problem as disobedience let alone as an acquisition of knowledge about good and evil. Instead I would compare it to the rather common parental story of a command given to children not to play in the street. The parental command is not a test but a natural means of transitioning from the carefully guarded toddler to children who learn to take care of themselves. But I think this must recognize that disobedience is practically the nature of children. And yet the danger is real. The child who disobeys the command not to play in the street could die. And likewise the disobedience of Adam and Eve did lead them to misuse their gifts for self destructive habits like blaming everyone and everything but themselves for their own mistakes.
I have just read through this thread, having been away from Biologos for longer than I would have liked to. So this reply is not just to this last posting.
Any consideration of the meaning of the Adam and Eve story has to be made within the context of what is this world that we are living in, how did it get here; and who am I as a human - purely a creature of this world, or is there more to me than the physical being that I can touch and feel?
My belief is that this universe - which we now know is much larger than any ancient people could have conceived, and contains millions of other planets that could easily have developed life much like that on this Earth - was created by God, with purpose(s) that we can only have a partial understanding while we live here. I do not believe that God didn’t know what He was doing, and have no respect for any human claim that any human caused this world to be different from what God had known and planned when He created it. That is, I do not believe that God bothered to create a physical universe for people to live in for eternity with no evil, or any other problems.
As a scientist and a Christian, I do believe that I am both a physical body in this world, with a soul that God put into my body at birth (note that I do not know when God put my soul into my body, but I am very sure that it was God who put my soul in, and not that my soul was created by anything that happened in this world). What I am saying here is that I do believe that my personal salvation is something between me and my God, and whatever Adam and Eve did, or did not do, may help me understand something about my relationship with God, but it does not control my relationship with God in any significant manner.
Any discussion of the meaning of the story about Adam and Eve is presuming an interpretation of an unstated question: Why did God put us humans in this particular world, in this universe which He created?
Without an answer to that question, any discussion of what the Adam and Eve story means is out of context, and there is a 99.9999% liklihood that we are talking past each other.
Yes. I came to that conclusion before I even read this statement. But since it is addressed to me it is more likely to get my attention and so I feel obliged to answer. There is a different button to push (lower down) if you want to make sure everyone reads your response.
Indeed. Too disconnected from reality as we experience and measure it and the story becomes indistinguishable from fantasy.
Yes. I believe that too. But why? All the evidence tells me that God was not creating a video game with npc characters of His design. Instead it tells me God’s purpose was an authentic relationship with being who have their own life with their own choices.
It does not follow from God knowing what He was doing, that God therefore had to be in control of everything. I think that is an assumption of those obsessed with power and control, with a poor understanding of the value of love and relationship.
I have little regard for religion or philosophy which disconnects from the most fundamental human experience of choice and responsibility. Like Kierkegaard I would consider such devoid of value or meaning. I think the whole point of God’s creation of a universe of natural law was a real relationship requiring writing the story of what happens in partnership with us together.
Sure, but while for you this means (as far as I can tell) God decided for us to experience evil, for me it means God created beings who could make that choice themselves. As for problems (i.e. challenges) that is a necessity for the existence of life itself.
I am a scientist and Christian, but I see no reason in either science or the Bible to believe in a soul. I think the soul is a creation of other religions who believed in transmigration and something divine caught in a trap of matter (Plato and the Gnostics). I certainly do believe in a non-physical (spiritual) existence and as Paul explains in 1 Cor 15 a resurrection to a spiritual body. But I do no believe in any non-physical thing inserted into the body making it alive or a person. The evidence does not support any such thing.
Control? No. But unavoidable consequences? Yes. The impact of history on our present existence is enormous and undeniable. We have free will, but that is far from unconditional. It depends fundamentally on our awareness of the possible choices. Thus it is fundamental to Christianity that what is possible for us is changed absolutely by what Christ did. And I don’t think it is an accomplishment of religious magic but of altered awareness.
Indeed. Just as the question of God’s existence depends totally on what you mean by God. So I gave my answer to this question you stated: relationship is why God created the universe. But… what is your answer to this question.
I was intrigued by your comment
I thought reply under a comment makes it always visible to everyone in the thread and for a private reply you need to use a different way.
In my discussion with AI I tried to look at the bible form a psychologists point of view and how they interpret the story of the fall as I always looked at it as a poetic description of puberty. It was interesting to see it from the perspective of Jung and Peterson who also see the bible as a mythical transmission of human wisdom to help us to form a coherent worldview. Hope you find it an interesting read
Freud’s View on the Bible
I am not sure the story of Adam and Eve is historical because doctrinally Adam and Eve are the first humans and what they do affects all their descendants and the rest of Creation.
I am not sure that the modern science of genetics can affirm that Homo Sapiens came from one male and female, but more likely Homo sapiens came from a in-group gene pool, as in most situations of speciation.
now that is interesting as it does not show up as a reply to @mitchellmckain and cited the whole post whilst I only intended to quote the bit that is in yellow. So whatever button I pressed 
isn’t the problem that the human problem did not start with our genes but with our memes?
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