I thank you and @Josh, because between the two of you I finally “got it” !!!
I think it is a brilliant observation that while DNA studies point to a particular generation … this does not preclude the genealogical chain of life … which may or may not match the genetic traces…
Very very clever…
I’ll start by saying that all these are secondary questions. It doesn’t matter how they respond in the most important sense, because what I am presenting here is the truthful account. It is very important to carefully delimit what science does not say, and make room for people that think different than us on non-essential points.
Yes, it true that most theistic evolutionists take Adam “figuratively”, but there is no reason in science that we should conclude that this is the only way to be a theistic evolutionist. Moreover, the real sticking point for most people who insist on a historical Adam is Paul in Romans, not Genesis. Many are fine with diversity of opinions about Genesis, but when it comes to reinterpreting Paul, that is an entirely different thing.
Now, I think there are questions we can raise about that approach. Personally, I affirm a historical Adam, but I resist the notion that saving knowledge of Jesus somehow depends on Adam. I find that assertion a large stretch, and inconsistent with Scripture (e.g. why do no other authors refer to Adam if it is so important?, Why is Jesus, not Adam, called the cornerstone?).
Setting my agreements and disagreements aside, this is a theological question that is in no way resolved by scientific inquiry. In my eyes (and I know some may disagree with me), it seems wrong to assert science here as a way to resolve the disagreement, as if evolution tells us that Adam could not be historical. This, given what I know from science, seems to be false.
Explaining this to those on the “other side of the fence”, I get important responses.
Curiosity and a great deal of gratitude for explaining this truthfully to them.
Confusion about why this has not been explained to them before. For this, I have no good response. I’m honestly confused by this too. I cannot be the only person to recognize this, but sometimes I feel like the only one with standing in TE circles making these points.
Comments like, “well, if all theistic evolutionists were like you, I would not have a problem with it.” Often, I’ll ask, “So what grounds exactly do you have for excluding me?” To which they have no response, and apologize for the circumstances that lead to this unfortunate set of events.
One theologian recently told me, “I like when you say they were ‘real’, that is probably a better word than ‘historical’”. This follows from my definition of historical Adam: real people in our past to whom we all trace our lineage.
Gratitude for not quickly subordinating their theological concerns to science. This is particularly important. This has been an opportunity to explain what science does not say, which clarifies on a point they care about that I am not just dismissing theology because of science. It builds a great deal of trust.
Recognition that the assumption that all TE rejected historical Adam was false, and they probably needed to rethink their belief statements (!). Once again, there are several awkward conversations where a group comes to realize that their presumptions about evolution are false, and they cannot actually identify a theological objection any more. Now what are they to do? Sometimes I feel like it provokes conversations like Acts 10 with Peter at Cornelius’s house, seeing a Gentile filled by the Holy Spirit for the first time. If they cannot find a theological fault, why exactly are they opposed?
So yes, I can say with great confidence that this really does matter. Making this distinction and refraining from misusing science in a debate about theology builds bridges and trust. More importantly, it is honest. This is the whole story of the scientific account, not just the part that challenges them, but also the part that makes space.
I am processing your thoughtful response. I agree that science does not exclude a genealogical Adam (as a layperson I am just assuming the mathematical analysis is correct). I have some hesitation about highlighting this as an escape hatch (which is kind of what it seems to me), because it just seems rickety. It may not be scientifically excluded, but that seems a low bar. It “makes room” for their notion of an ancestral Adam by redefining their notion of an ancestral Adam altogether, and in that sense it makes Paul a little easier to line up. It seems to me the science excludes their existing notion of Adam (genealogical-genetic-everything-ancestor), so in this sense science does exclude their view. So their general impression about the science in contrast to their own view is in an important sense correct. But I don’t know that we should prop up this other technical possibility in its place. It might be worth mentioning but I’m unconvinced it’s worth highlighting. But I am a bit torn, if this is building bridges. For me personally, the struggle would be whether or not to present something as a bridge if I still believe it isn’t true. (But if I were the one having the discussion I guess I could present it as a hypothetical while also mentioning that I don’t personally buy it.)
I think this is a very intelligent analysis you have raised. I’m being a bit contrarian but I don’t mean any disrespect. I’m just processing it and thinking through it, and these are some of the things going through my mind as I reflect on your points. Thank you for presenting it here!
Thanks for taking this seriously.
I do emphasize this is about truthfulness.
Just because you take Adam figuratively does not give license to overstate the claims of science. You should say the truth:
“I do not affirm a historical Adam, but it is important recognize that it is not science that tells me that; I get that from my understanding of Scripture and theology.”
Then make the case from Scripture and theology if you are so inclined. Just please do not conscript science on your behalf. I do no think that is honest.
I’m not asking you to highlight it as if you believed it was desirable. I’m just asking us to truthfully explain what evolution tells us about our origins. And your impression of rickety is subjective. Different theological traditions have different values and emphasis, and they will come to different conclusion than you about what is rickety or not.
In my opinion, I cannot see any reason to withhold this information from people. It is only an escape hatch if we have predetermined that they are wrong, and we cannot know that from science.
On the contrary, I’m not the one doing the redefining. Rather, I’m insisting that we do not redefine ancestor from genealogical to genetic.
I’m on solid ground here too. “Genetic” ancestors is certainly not what Paul meant. Instead Paul meant (at most) “genealogical” ancestors. No one seriously disputes this. The real “redefinition” is to think that Paul is talking about genetic ancestry. That is genuinely an absurd assertion that is transparently eisogesis. I’m just pointing out the overlooked fact that genetic and geneological are different things, and we do a disservice to everyone when we equivocate them. It is not good science. It is not good theology. It is not helpful.
Rather than preemptively managing everyone’s reaction to accurate science, in this situation, we should focus on correctly representing the science. There is no harm in being truthful here. It builds bridges, even if you yourself take Adam figuratively.
To be clear I am not advocating overstating the claims of science, at least not deliberately advocating that. I think we are agreeing that science does not preclude a genealogical lineage (I believe what you have been saying in this thread about that anyway), and I would have no interest in lying to anyone about that.
I can’t find the words you quoted but I assume this is a response to someone else.
I am not advocating withholding it, in that “withholding” implies that mentioning it is somehow obligatory to keep the discussion honest. I am just not sold that bringing it up is required or desirable. It is true that the science indicates that all humanity did not physically originate from a single pair. I am not sure raising the genealogical lineage is a necessary addendum to this point when having a discussion.
I don’t think we need to manage everyone’s reaction to science. It’s a question of what is relevant or helpful to any given discussion. However, I do think after having this discussion with you, I would now raise this distinction at least in passing if I was having an extended conversation with someone about this, just so that the facts were on the table. I think we just disagree on the importance and/or necessity and/or helpfulness of raising this distinction.
Yes I know. I do not think anyone is deliberately not being truthful.
I take that point. I appreciate you hearing me out though.
Just to clarify, I was not accusing you our anyone of being dishonest. Most people do not even know about this distinction, and are explaining the situation as they see it. And you are certainly entitled to value this details more than or less than others.
Joshua, this is such an important point. On the one hand it’s wrong to assume that the biblical concept of “man” was ever the same as the biological one, or even that it retains the same meaning throughout Scripture. In Genesis 2, we must remember, “man” (adam) is defined in terms of the Eden story of Adam, and not in terms of biology, so we must assume something of that understanding of humanity carries on down to the gospel revelation.
On the other hand, it seems to me that nearly any version of (Christian) Evolutionary Creation requires a definition of “humanity” that is not purely biological. After all, in any version of evolution that is not saltational (in which case it is indistinguishable from progressive creation) and which includes mankind, humanity is a gradually emergent phenomenon biologically.
Species are said to be nominal categories caught in time: somewhere between us and the australapithecines, via H erectus et al, and including the known hybridization events, H sapiens can be identified: but even after that there is apparently a gradual development up to what people term “modern humans”. Would we like to bet hard on taking a child from 200K years ago and being able to train it up as a Baptist minister? And if not, when?
Theologically, though, there are various quite discrete matters that can’t easily be incorporated into a gradual developmental continuum: one is capable of accountability before God, or not. One is a part of the creation ordinance to “rule and subdue” the earth, or one is not. One is a conscious sinner, or one is an instinctive creature living by its nature. One needs faith in Christ for salvation (Christ having atoned for man “in Adam”, and bringing all who are saved into a distinct new humanity “in Christ”), or (like the animals) one does not need to repent and be baptized. And that salvation involves eternal life, which one may either possess, or not - you can’t become half eternal.
ECs therefore need to place a dividing line around humanity somewhere in their thinking, and biological evolution doesn’t provide one. Hence people tend to use use categories such as intelligence, or the dawn of religious awareness; or more Scripturally the revelation of Yahweh to mankind and his commissioning them as his image bearers; or some invisible spiritual event across the race with the same effect.
The point is that without some such watershed, EC must exist in two unconnectable worlds - a more or less gradualist biological one, and a world of faith in which humanity is just all the folks around now. But in such a matter as “What is man?” it’s surely important not just to make arbitrary guesses leading to bad theology (remember those people who justified slavery and eugenics on the basis that non-white races were not evolutionarily human, and therefore not God’s children).
The biblical concept of Adam is the only biblical model for the “limits” of theological humanity, which makes it preferable as a starting point to, say, genetics or psychology. How one develops that idea to be compatible with an evolutionary biology might vary a lot, but the necessity I have outlined means that considering a genealogical framework, as you have outlined it here, is not merely a whimsical option, but one way of “saving the phenomena” both of evolutionary science and Christian doctrine.
It’s not obvious to me why most of your categories have to be discrete. Why cannot one have partial responsibility to rule and subdue, be partially conscious of sin, have limited moral accountability? That doesn’t make much sense for salvation, to be sure, as long as you’re conceiving of salvation as a sorting out of people into discrete categories of sheep and goats. If instead you view salvation as the renewal of all creation, then the issue seems more tractable.
In any case, your problem exists independent of evolution. There are plenty of humans who lack moral accountability, who cannot rule the earth, who are not conscious sinners: the demented, the psychotic, the comatose, the very young. Denying humanity to these people has obvious moral issues and doesn’t solve your problem anyway, since all of these groups have fuzzy boundaries.
Steve
My comment presupposed seeking to preserve the theological structures of Christianity, rather than let evolution be the arbiter of doctrine. The categories of sheep and goats were introduced only by Jesus as part of his message, so we ought to be careful before dismissing them as irrelevant to his message
And, again, although it’s clear that the gospel is cosmic in its scope, inaugurating a new kind of reality, it’s also crystal clear in the NT that mankind is a key player in that process - it is Christ who, as the representative man, provides the solution to human sin, the road block in the way of the completion of the new creation, by his human death and resurrection, And it is through the redemption of mankind that mankind is restored to his proper position - ultimately via the general resurrection, and it is through that “glorious freedom of the sons of God” that the non-rational creation is carried up into God - but without any suggestion, in Scripture, that that must mean anything like resurrection or eternal life for it. So one way or another, the theological category of “humanity” remains crucial.
You’re quite right that the problems of demarcation of humanity exist apart from evolution. That’s not in dispute. But they are problems that traditional theology has always resolved very largely in terms of the solidarity of humanity in Adam. The care for the weak, poor, the unborn and outcast has always depended on the recognition of their true humanity under God. The inability of individuals to function fully as humans has been (in various ways) made a responsibility for the rest of us to “cover” as family, or sometimes committed to the mercy of Christ as our King and representative.
Philosophically, even back in mediaeval times, the form or nature of humanity was recognised as capable of defect (through all those disabilities and through sin itself), yet the reality and definitiveness of that nature was found, in the end, through its generation from Adam
If the same questions are to be answered as satisfactorily in an evolutinary scenario, therefore, comparable criteria have to be established. I don’t think that will be achieved simply by denying that the humanity affirmed in Scripture and in 2000 years of church history was ever a valid entity.
Hi Joshua -
I appreciate your “outside the box” thinking! Thanks for bringing your perspective to our attention.
I can understand how that would be true today. But was that true 2000 years ago when Paul wrote? And would it have been true 3000 years ago, when the Israelites left Egypt to establish their new home in Israel? The last 3000 years have allowed for further mixing; in particular, the last 400 years have seen a lot of travel, migration, colonization, etc.
Also, I would like to ask for a link to a paper or blog post where some supporting back-of-the-envelope calculations have been published. Please forgive me if I missed a link earlier.
Thanks!
Rickety? No sir! I have been the “keeper” of my family’s genealogy files for about 30 years. And this data has been the door into such lineage societies as:
Daughters of the American Revolution ( approx. 178,000 members world wide).
Sons of the American Revolution (< male version, with an average membership 10% of the DAR);
Sons of the Revolution (< they own Frances Tavern in NYC where Washing said farewell to his officers).
There are many more of these focused on America… but there are several world-wide groups that
are more relevant to this discussion:
Baronial Order of Magna Charta
Descendants of the Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Kings of Britain
Descendants of the Knights of the Bath
International Society of the Descendants of Charlemagne (Facebook)
National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons
Order of the Crown of Charlemagne (branches in Europe and the USA)
Order of the Merovingian Dynasty
Plantagenet Society
Society of Descendants of Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter
Sovereign Colonial Society Americans of Royal Descent
And many many more…
There is nothing “rickety” about a proven line of descent when it comes to establishing the royal lineages of the still-living pockets of aristocracy in Europe. There is even a known pocket of descendants who come from the marriage of a daughter of an Emperor of Eastern Rome (a princess of the so-called Byzantine Empire) who married into European Royalty.
The “rickety” assumption by neophyte genealogists is the “vanity” that they or their kin have a percentage of the actual DNA of the King, Queen or Knight Errant in question! There are only 23 human chromosomes, with a potential of getting halved with each generation.
The wiki article on the “Founder Effect” touches on this:
“Founder effects can also occur naturally as competing genetic lines die out. This means that an effective founder population consists only of those whose genetic print is identifiable in subsequent populations. Because in sexual reproduction, genetic recombination ensures that with each generation, only half the genetic material of a parent is represented in the offspring, some genetic lines may die out entirely, though numerous progeny are born.”
.
.
Interestingly, this section of the Wiki article includes a bracketed note: “Citation needed” - - not because it is somehow a doubtful conclusion, but because the writings of experts who work with this scenario are not widely known amongst the “users” and “readers” of this Wiki topic.
And for @Christy, there is even a mention of the Founder Effect on language instead of genetics: "The founder effect in language underlines the impact of the founder population on the nature of a language that emerges from reclamation or creolization. "
In this next article (link below), we find a rather complex paragraph:
A Logistic Branching Process For Population Genetics [(c) 2003]
By R. B. Campbell, Department of Mathematics, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614
“Within each generation, the reproduction of the genes obey independent Poisson distributions, hence the reproduction of each type of allele is a Poisson distribution (Feller, 1957). Furthermore, if one is considering only two different alleles, the number of alleles of each type, conditioned on the resultant population size, will have a binomial distribution (if each allele obeys a Poisson distribution (Feller, 1957)). Therefore the sampling variance will be Vp = p(1−p) / N.”
This article is a tangle of mathematical concepts and jargon! But I think I’ve gleaned one of the key [helpful!] paragraphs here:
"For N = 1000 [original population size], all the approximations have:
“Hence the shape of the reduced family tree resembles a long stemmed rose with very little breadth until the top. This shape of the reduced family tree confirms why most mutations should be rare: most mutations in the ancestral pedigree will have occurred in recent generations, because most individuals in the ancestral pedigree lived in recent generations.”
[End of Quote]
PDF link for above article: http://www.math.uni.edu/~campbell/logis.pdf
[Beginning of Interpretation]
Okay! So what is this “long stemmed rose” model telling us? Because human genes are distributed onto only 23 pairs of chromosomes (instead of on a nest of say one million mini-chromosomes), genetic contribution into the next generation gets clobbered by the coin toss! A pair of 23 is immediately just 23. Then statistically, 23 chromosomes (on average) get cut down to 11 or 12 surviving chromosomes, than 5 or 6, then 2 or 3, then 1 or 2 … then gone.
Armed with a little knowledge, I can almost read the headlines now!: imagine a group of sophisticated YEC’s publishing an article about God using divine intervention to make sure that at least one chromosome from Adam and one from Eve survives into all the descendants of the next human generation!
Calculations like those above also deal with the conundrum of “Y” chromosome persisting in an unadulterated lineage of males… and the mitochrondrial genetic input persisting in a lineage of women. While these factors are easier to track, anyone who thinks uninterrupted lines of all males or uninterrupted lines of all females are common hasn’t read many histories of the Kings and Queens of the middle ages.
Sooner or later, the gender chain gets broken… and the pedigree of the “Y” or of the mitochondria is extinct for that lineage forever. While “aggregations” (populations) can be analyzed backwards to approximate how far back a founding pair might be (on average and with a huge standard deviation), the only hope for a modern couple - - John & Jane - - is that they just might be the rarest of lottery winners … the last existing lineage of Adam’s “Y” chromosome and the last existing lineage of Eve’s mitochondria.
But look at the tragedy that could very well occur! If John & Jane have children, and either have all boys or all girls, then either Eve’s or Adam’s already rare genetic baggage will go extinct in yet another lineage!
Chris
I posted a link further up to a piece I did in 2011, with links to some of the original papers.
Joshua’s estimates are probably on the conservative side, according to Rohde’s estimates, as you’ll see - but as ever mathematical models are only as good as the guesses you put it! One thing i remember, though, was that the general chronology was quite robust within a wide range of assumptions.
On the question of what the situation was “back when”, if we assume some kind of genealogical heritage (of whatever sort) for an “Adam” (let’s say in 4004 BC in Mesopotamia for the sake of argument, since that was the first modern and scientific estimate by the good Dr Ussher, a distant relative of mine by marriage!), then it would have spread at exactly the rate of diffusion of ANE culture round the world… or in the early days, roughly according to the Table of nations in Genesis, which Ken Kitchen believes reflects some historical truths rather than fiction.
That would put all the people with whom Israel actually dealt historically within the “net”. In those days, of course the “chosen people” covenant was only with Israel and a smattering of others - hangers on from the Exodus, Cannanites at the settlement, Naaman the Syrian etc. The imperative to “go into all the world” dates only from Jesus and 30AD, and even that took many centuries. So maybe that’s the time frame that we should be looking at regarding Universal Common Ancestors, rather than earlier…
All that rather assumes, of course, a lot of future theological work on the model to decide what we think was being inherited.
@Jon_Garvey, I liked the final paragraph from your linked article:
Rohde and the MRCA simulations
“An interesting development is the work of Douglas Rohde, then of MIT, who produced papers in 2004 and 20051,2 describing complex computer simulations designed to find the date of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living people. Unlike the Mitochondrial Eve and Genetic Adam studies, this deals with the fact that common ancestry covers all genes, and that we might have over time lost most or all of the actual genes of someone who is nevertheless our ancestor.”
If we add 2000 years to 4000 BCE, that’s 6000 years. If we pick an average generation of between 20 and 40 years (say, 30), that’s just 200 generations.
But in 200 generations, virtually all the current population is devoid of any chromosomal copies of a founding pair.
But, you are absolutely right, this wouldn’t change our ancestry one whit !!!
George
One way of seeing this is to consider that the secret of making fire might have been passed down the generations to you from one of those ancestors with whom you share no genes.
I would start here.
What do you think about the references-therein?
There’s lots of math in this article… what calculation are you particularly interested in?
This PDF points out that one of the most powerful factors in any calculations of this sort
is the size of the initial population. 1000 is a typically used number.
You want calculations on an initial population of 2?
Or of the initial population size believed to apply to the hominid “bottleneck”?, say 15,000?
George
My presupposition is that any theology worth having should reflect reality, and that as our knowledge of reality changes, our theological structure may have to change too. We’ve learned that humans evolved. If that means some of our theology has to change, so be it.
I wasn’t suggesting that we dismiss them. My point is that the Christian tradition and scripture both contain a variety of resources for responding to theological questions, and that what seems like a major problem may depend on which parts of the tradition we choose to emphasize.[quote=“Jon_Garvey, post:29, topic:35659”]
You’re quite right that the problems of demarcation of humanity exist apart from evolution. That’s not in dispute. But they are problems that traditional theology has always resolved very largely in terms of the solidarity of humanity in Adam. The care for the weak, poor, the unborn and outcast has always depended on the recognition of their true humanity under God. The inability of individuals to function fully as humans has been (in various ways) made a responsibility for the rest of us to “cover” as family, or sometimes committed to the mercy of Christ as our King and representative.
[/quote]
Sure. I don’t see why the same kind of approach cannot continue to work even in the absence of a historical Adam, though. Our solidarity as members of the same family does not depend on Adam, after all. If anything, recognizing that our relatedness extends beyond Homo sapiens might suggest that we have some responsibility to our more distantly related kin as well, which strikes me as not necessarily a bad thing.
In any case, solidarity in Adam addresses our responsibility to those less capable. It doesn’t really answer the questions you were raising, about their moral accountability and salvation. I’m no expert on the history of theology, but my impression is that when dealing with that question, traditional theology has not exactly been a model of clarity or coherence. A straightforward implication of descent from Adam and original sin would seem to be that unbaptized infants(*) who die go to Hell – a kinder, gentler Hell, maybe, but Hell. That was Augustine’s conclusion, wasn’t it? But that conclusion is sufficiently repellent that a variety of alternatives have been proposed, and the whole issue remains uncomfortably murky. Personally, I don’t feel that having to revisit it with changed assumptions is a bad thing.
(*) Or their equivalent in evangelical Protestant theology.
We’ve found it convenient to modify or drop many medieval concepts. I’ve done biology for a couple of decades and have never had occasion to invoke the concept of the vegetative soul, and I’ve never heard the concept of the king’s two bodies come up in discussions of American politics. Are theological concepts immune from similar change?
That is a point you can make.
I’m just insisting we keep evolution out of it. The science does not dispute the theology as much as we think.
Jon,
To add a point or two. The insistence that evolution provides the necessary understanding of human personhood and humanity is erroneous at so many levels – a Protestant perspective that shows the inadequacy of evolution for this endeavour seems to me to be persuasively given by Plantinga (I am recently aware of his writings, but what I have read so far is impressive). The questions of what it means to be human, and the theological discussions on this, go back to the beginnings of Christian theology (eg Gregory of Nyssen, “On the Making of Man” is worth reading). I find it presumptuous (and perhaps preposterous) for anyone to make the vast generalisation that Christian theology is wrong, and ToE will give us the truth on these matters. It is preposterous on many levels, but I want to emphasise one that is central to the Christian faith. I have stated before that Christ as the Son of Man, is taught in the Gospel as descended from David, Abraham and ultimately Adam. This genealogy is discussed throughout the Bible, and the covenant with Abraham includes “your descendents will be as the starts in the heavens”, and this has now come to include Jew and Gentile. This also speaks of human nature, which ultimately comes down to that of Christ.
The genealogy relates all of us to the covenant between Abraham and God, and this is followed by the discussion on human nature and our capacity to repent from sin, and turn to Christ, - to extend this covenant to the new one that sees all humanity offered salvation.
I again state, it is preposterous to look to ToE for an understanding of these matters that are central to, and at the very core, of the Christian faith.
I agree
that unbaptized infants(*) who die go to Hell
For one who prides himself in knowing what is right, you fall down - perhaps this point has come up too often. A little historical knowledge can make a difference:
Infant baptism was not an issue. However many Christian families wanted to bring their infants before the altar (for blessings) and eventually the Church decided to allow this, by adopting infant baptism, but only after an appropriate adult was appointed as god-father, who was responsible for educating the children in the faith as they grew up.
I urge you to check this information so that at least you may not need to confess your gnorance again.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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