Essentials of Creation: A Response to The Gospel Coalition

[Jay313 (Jay Johnson)]

However, nothing in science unsettles the confession that God specially created a single couple, Adam and Eve, from whom we all descend. Incorrectly, this article argues otherwise. Privately, more than one scientist has asked @DeborahHaarsma to correct the scientific error in this article. Hopefully she will.

Respectfully, I do not see a scientific error in the article. It looks to me that Dr. Haarsma simply did not use your preferred wording, but I’ll let the BL “powers that be” defend themselves on that score, if they wish.

Misstating his position, and misrepresenting the science in a way that pushes him out of the BioLogos tent does not seem wise. I hope that these errors can be retracted. We need to do whatever we can to grow the tent, not shrink it. This is especially important for those like Keller who have advocated on our behalf. Nothing he has affirmed in this video is contradicted by the findings of mainstream science.

If that is true, then I believe that the @DeborahHaarsma letter could be a starting point to open a dialogue on this issue with Keller and others at the TGC, to reassure them that some of their positions are not in fact opposed to the scientific consensus, and others could be modified without any danger of affecting the theological rationale for believing in a real Adam and Eve as the common ancestors of all of humanity.

First, if intelligent, reasonable people cannot agree upon what Keller and Moore meant, then perhaps The Gospel Coalition should clarify their position.

Second, love you both, but you guys missed the boat. The president of BioLogos is not pushing The Gospel Coalition out of the tent, or attacking their beliefs on scientific grounds. The whole point of the article was the opposite – to ask TGC not to push others out of the tent by defining the de novo creation of Adam & Eve as an “essential” or “non-negotiable” belief.

EDIT: Changed the @Swamidass quote above to reflect his own edit.

[Casper_Hesp]

I wish I could give that response more than one like…

[BradKramer]

Tim Keller has been an advocate of theistic evolutionists, taking real risks in making our case. It is important that we receive him with kindness. Misstating his position, and misrepresenting the science to push him out of the BioLogos tent does not seem wise.

There have been several direct communications between Francis Collins, Deb Haarsma, and Tim Keller about the TGC video and the content of our response. Keller has been friendly to BioLogos for many years, and this latest article has not changed that posture at all, either from our perspective or his. He has never been entirely in the BioLogos tent because he has significant reservations about human evolution, and those reservations are no secret—he explains this in his BioLogos essay. He endorses our efforts to reconcile faith and science but not every aspect of our position on evolution and human origins. As the article stated, we remain enthusiastic fans of Keller and his ministry, and are glad for our friendship with him.

[TedDavis (Dr. Ted Davis)]

Even though I don’t see any historical claims in Deb’s column or in the video, I’ll speak to one of the issues here as an historian, in order to add that missing piece to the theological, scientific, and philosophical pieces already present.

It’s deucedly difficult to make historically accurate general claims about racism, human rights, evolution, and separate creation. That’s not a point of contention in the material here, but such claims are very often made in various contexts. Perhaps some readers/hearers of the column and the video might be inclined to add an implicit historical dimension to these issues, when that might be unwarranted.

Let me explain.

Saying (for example) that evolution contradicts human dignity, or that genetics supports human equality, are IMO going well beyond the historical record. One might construct philosophical or theological arguments about specific connections that ought to exist, and that is all well and good, as long as one is explicit about one’s assumptions. Historically, however, things quickly get complicated. What actually has been said about such connections? In fact, individual secular scientists and leading Christian theologians and biblical scholars have said many different things on many different occasions. One can easily find among scientists in the past strong support for scientific racism: http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Stein2.htm, or a strong denial of any validity to it: http://biopolitics.kom.uni.st/Stephen%20Jay%20Gould/The%20Mismeasure%20of%20Man%20(148)/The%20Mismeasure%20of%20Man%20-%20Stephen%20Jay%20Gould.pdf. One can also find among major Christian theologians outspoken support for the view that the Bible allows slavery: http://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/slavery-science-and-southern-presbyterians-before-the-civil-war/, or just the opposite: http://medicolegal.tripod.com/weldbas.htm. And, as I’ve argued elsewhere, Darwin was a racist by modern standards, but he strongly objected to genocide: http://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/did-darwin-promote-genocide. The previous sentence is directly contrary to what is said in another column on the TGC site: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-your-biology-teacher-didnt-tell-you-about-charles-darwin.

In other words, readers, please go slowly if you are inclined to draw conclusions about the historical situation on this very important issue, or if you want to extrapolate from an individual historical example to a broader generalization in the hope of applying it to our situation now. Things get very messy, very quickly. Anyone who thinks there is a specific, necessary connection between human rights and either the Bible or Christian theology or evolution had better take a deep breath before going any further. There isn’t. Historical context can influence specific interpretations of the book of nature (science) and the book of scripture (hermeneutics and theology) in diverse ways, any one of which can seem very convincing at the time to an author and her or his audience. I urge humility all around—yet paradoxically the courage to uphold one’s moral convictions.

[Sy_Garte]

[quote=“Jay313, post:21, topic:36663”]
Second, love you both, but you guys missed the boat.

@Jay313 Thanks, but I wasn’t actually aiming for that particular boat. I wasn’t so much addressing Deb’s letter (which I thought was carefully and lovingly written to a fellow Christian leader) as trying to explain how Joshua @Swamidass’ insights into the genealogical science behind Adam as a biological progenitor of all modern humans, could help smooth the differences between the Biologos position on Adam and that of Keller and the TGC. Perhaps such smoothing is neither necessary nor possible, in which case, no harm done, and we can all sit comfortably under a large tent that includes the many ideas about Adam and Eve we are all familiar with. I agree that it is not necessary that we all agree, and I didnt really hear Keller say that we must, but rather that he cannot accept a mythical Adam, despite what he thinks the science is saying (which it actually isn’t).

I

[Swamidass (Peaceful Science)]

As I read @Sy_Garte, we are in agreement.

[aleo (Albert Leo)]

There have been several direct communications between Francis Collins, Deb Haarsma, and Tim Keller about the TGC video

I’m glad to hear Deb cite Derek Kidner, John Scott, and Billy Graham as orthodox evangelicals open to some kind of evolutionary origin of humans. But it must be pointed out, I think, that all three would have distinguished between the origin of the human body (the biological human) and the origin of humans in the image of God and the first Truly Human (as Albert Leo has said).

IMO almost all of the controversy surrounding the “Essentials of Creation” can be resolved if we accept this premise:
"To be truly human, it is necessary but not sufficient to possess the genome of a Homo sapiens." @grayt2 assumes that the experts taking part in these discussions appreciate this, but I see no evidence that they have.

The best scientific evidence dates the first appearance of the Homo sapiens as a species at approximately 200K yrs. ago, and for at least 100K yrs. their behavior and lifestyle (as much as is evidenced by artifacts) closely paralleled the Neanderthals, who, although related closely enough genetically to mate with H.s., probably would not have fit in with modern human society; i.e.,be Truly human. It wasn’t until about 50Kyrs ago that we see evidence of any brains (H.s. or Ndtl) operating as Mind and possessing a Conscience.

Question: If we could currently train a Neanderthal infant, would it become a productive member of today’s society? We may never know–just as we may never know if God could consider some intelligent octopus-like creature on another planet as ‘made in His image’.
Al Leo

[grayt2 (Terry M. Gray)]

Stott and Graham both refer back to Kidner. Kidner paints broad strokes (and, if I remember correctly, refers back to some Australopithecene, much earlier than 50,000 years ago), but the idea is that there is biological evolution and then some kind of ensoulation or at least a granting of capacities (say, a conscious and moral knowledge and awareness of God) not present from the biology alone (however that might work except by ensoulation, I can’t say). It seems to me that that is exactly what aleo is saying. There is biological evolution up to a point, then some special/immediate creation that results in a true human. Kidner suggests that this occurs with some representative head followed by some en masse creative act for the remaining biologically human people on the planet. It seems that Jack Collins is also willing to entertain something like this.

As for BradKramer’s post, I was not all suggesting that Keller is not friendly with BioLogos or supportive of its work up to a point. It’s simply that conservative, confessionally Reformed folks like Keller (and myself) continue to draw the line with some sort of historical, covenantal head first truly human who represented all other and future humans, and who failed to keep that original covenant, which failure plunged humanity into alienation from God rather than the previous right relationship with God. The willingness of BioLogos to draw the line elsewhere for whatever reason (being big tent, not limiting itself to being conservative, confessionally Reformed, etc.) means that a relatively fundamental disagreement will continue. And if that’s the case then BioLogos isn’t really offering anything particularly new. Such adjustments to Christian theology were made already a century ago.

[Jon_Garvey]

Terry

I agree with you here. In the light of Keller’s video and his old essay at BioLogos I re-examined Kidner’s “initial sketch” here at the beginning of last month. Remember he was writing in 1967, even before the “out of Africa” hypotheis was established.

What surprises me on re-examination is that he doesn’t seem to commit himself to a deep time, brutal hominid concept, but speaks of “a species prepared in every way for humanity, with already a long history of practical intelligence, artistic sensibility and the capacity for awe and reflection”.

Two things emerge from that: firstly that he sees the evolutionary process itself, prior to the “Adam event”, as providentially guided. And secondly, practically speaking it divorces that event from any necessary linkage to cultural level. If the spiritual experience of his Adam works in, say, Cro-Magnon times, then it would work equally in Neolithic times.

After all, what Genesis 2 teaches is nothing if it is not a specific, personal relationship with Yahweh, who would become the God of Israel. Anything about human intelligence or culture is purely circumstantial.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

As for BradKramer’s post, I was not all suggesting that Keller is not friendly with BioLogos or supportive of its work up to a point. It’s simply that conservative, confessionally Reformed folks like Keller (and myself) continue to draw the line with some sort of historical, covenantal head first truly human who represented all other and future humans, and who failed to keep that original covenant, which failure plunged humanity into alienation from God rather than the previous right relationship with God.

@grayt2

Agreed. It was I who suggested that Kelker’s position is at odds with the work of BioLogos.

And the basis of my concern is your statement:

“…confessionally Reformed folks like Keller (and myself) continue to draw the line with some sort of historical, covenantal head first truly human who represented all other and future humans, and who failed to keep that original covenant, which failure plunged humanity into alienation from God …”

This alienation seems based on some special metaphysics of “a choice” - - rather than based on the flawed nature of all mortal creation … even when the mortals in question are uniquely endowed with Moral Agency!

It would appear that “Reformed Folks” use this unique endowment as the reason why the first sin changed the universe… because it disrupted a state of perfection. But that seems incorrect on its very face!

In contrast, I would argue that the Universe didn’t change at all… and that even before the first sin, humanity already had the flawed nature common to all mortal creation!

[grayt2 (Terry M. Gray)]

It may be the case the sorts of changes the result from the fall that Young Earth Creationists envision are overstated. So, “changed the universe” may have a lot more nuance in Keller’s (and my) view than you suggest.

However, the Reformed and generally Christian position is that sin is an intrusion into a sinless world. “State of perfection” may also need some nuance…many Christian traditions hold to an idea of a subsequent consummation even had Adam and Eve not sinned, i.e. a move from a probationary period to an eternal glory where sin is not even possible, as we expect to be the case when we experience glorification in the New Heavens and New Earth.

But the idea that God created humanity with a sinful, fallen nature seems fundamentally at odds with the Biblical account. The doctrine of the Fall says that things aren’t what they are supposed to be and even how they were created. There was innocence, not perfection.

You shouldn’t get hung up on the idea that there’s no evidence in the scientific/historical record of such a paradise. It may have been short-lived. Martin Luther suggested that Adam didn’t make it past his first Sabbath. It also may have been restricted spatially to the Garden as well. You may protest that this means that we’ll never find evidence for such a thing in the natural world. Fine. I don’t base my belief in such a thing on evidence from the natural world, but from scripture.

Finally, and this comment applies to all my posts in this thread (and to others’ posts as well). Neither the Bible nor science tell us this story in detail. The scenarios that I, Keller, Leo, Collins, Kidner, etc. propose are highly speculative attempts to make sense of both accounts. i wouldn’t exactly call it “concordism”, especially because that’s a dirty word around here, but it is an attempt to make sense of two seemingly disparate revelations, confessing that both are authored by the same Person.

I am quite comfortable with the idea of docta ignorantia. We may never know how it all fits together, but we can affirm both the evolutionary claims and the Reformed theology claims knowing that God knows how they fit together. Both claims are rooted in a proper Christian epistemology, albeit two very different methods of attaining knowledge.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

But the idea that God created humanity with a sinful, fallen nature seems fundamentally at odds with the Biblical account.

@grayt2

The problem here is you are still using the term “fallen” and “sinful”… and trying to apply it to an evolutionary scenario.

( Mortal Flesh ) + ( Moral Agency ) does not equal Sin.

It equals “will sin”. It does not equal “fallen”… it equals “will fall”.

This approximates the Eastern Orthodox View… (which includes millions of good and sensible Christians) thought they would no doubt choose different words to express it.

[grayt2 (Terry M. Gray)]

I appreciate the clarification although I’m not sure I accept what follows: ‘It equals “will sin”. It does not equal “fallen”… it equals “will fall”.’

What I want to insist upon is that there was a pre-Fall innocence (the way God made things), a Fall that had effects on subsequent humanity, and a post-Fall fallen reality that we now live in.

One of the things that confirmation in righteousness/consummation/glorification brings (or would have brought) is de facto immortality (perhaps not inherent, but promised and sustained by God). Since Adam disobeyed God, that did not happen and mortality was the consequence.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

What I want to insist upon is that there was a pre-Fall innocence (the way God made things), a Fall that had effects on subsequent humanity, and a post-Fall fallen reality that we now live in.

@grayt2

This gets confusing when people equate normal death with The Fall in some supernatural way.

1. Death was avoided in Eden by means of the Tree of Life.

2. Obviously plants had to die in Eden if the human couple were going to eat.

3. Bacteria by the millions died in Adam’s gut the whole time.

4. God made Adam and Eve without sin… that seems clear enough.

5. And if he made Adam with Moral Agency, that would be the moment that animal life became capable of sinning. (Typo Corrected)

6. Adam succumbed to the inevitability of sinning.

7. I find it difficult to propose that God would have made a moral entity that was capable of Never Sinning. Wouldn’t that mean God wpuld have made a human race of peer God’s?

[grayt2 (Terry M. Gray)]

I have no problem with 1 through 4. When I say death, I am referring only to human death. (Animal death occurred before the fall–in fact, there appear to have been many extinctions before the fall; thus animal death and extinction appear to be part of God’s good creation.

Did you mean “sinning” and not “winning”? If so, then I have no problem with #5 as well.

I do have a problem with #6–I don’t think Adam sinning was inevitable (unless you are referring to God’s eternal decree).

And with #7–not sinning is not all there is to being God. There’s infinity, eternality, unchangeableness, aseity, etc. We will not become God even in our glorification; the Creator/creature distinction remains. I never said that Adam was created as a moral entity capable of Never Sinning, but I do think that we will be established in righteousness in our glorification and then capable Never Sinning. I think we will still be moral agents.