I read DL’s books and took his class. His ideas are crucial to be exposed to. I am EC.
On Gen 1-11, the first question is what is the literary genre of these texts? I think they are Creation/De-creation/Re-creation myths when compared to other such texts. If that is too large a pill, then I call them parables and there are clues all through the texts some of which get lost in translation. Christians often are taught to read these texts as history and to not do so is unfaithful but I think it is more faithful to read them as myths or parables.
Sorry for the delay, but we seem to be conversing with ourselves anyway, so I’ll take a break after this one.
You’re conflating knowledge of God and acknowledging God as Lord. One can have a knowledge of God that doesn’t rise to the level of worship. That is exactly what Paul describes in Romans 1:20-21, again: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Basically, in vv. 18-25 Paul is explaining why the whole world is in the grip of idolatry and spiritual darkness, seemingly abandoned by God. To do that, he reaches all the way back to the creation and Fall. In v. 20, Paul clearly says that, from the beginning, people have had an intuition that God exists. This is a form of “knowledge of God.” Paul does not say that they knew God intimately or worshiped him.
Has anyone but Christ ever submitted perfectly to God’s rule? Is there a present-day community where everyone submits perfectly to God’s rule? In any case, the short answer is “no.” For most of human history, we did not possess the necessary grammar and lexicon even to conceptualize a god, let alone worship YHWH.
Oh, it’s not just Proverbs. The same verses from Gen. 2-3 that imply some sort of relationship between God and “Adam” apply equally to “the man.” But, the main problem is that we’re not using “relationship” in the same sense. I am not talking about an intimate relationship, which seems to be your meaning. I am talking about a sense of God’s presence, an intuition of his existence and divine nature – something akin to a child’s understanding of God. Again, pre-Fall humanity simply lacked the abstract conceptual language to think and speak about God the way that we do.
Well, Waltke could just as easily have said that “pride is a self-confident attitude that disregards God in pursuit of selfish interests.” Be that as it may, when did God establish his rule upon the earth? I would say that God’s role as Creator established his rule from the moment he said, “Let there be light …” If “the kingdom of the world” (Rev. 11:15) is presently ruled by “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), then that occurred at the Fall, which means that God certainly was the ruler of the world of pre-Fall humanity.
I mashed these two together, but it sounds to me that the reason you are resistant is because of the implications for the genealogies. Is that an accurate guess?
Paul wrote an inspired interpretation/extrapolation of Genesis 2-3. The fact that it has some correspondence to history is my fault, not his. Haha
Of course Paul wasn’t. However, simply assuming that Paul always considered Adam to be “the first man” is begging the question. McKnight did a pretty good job of showing that first-century Jews considered and spoke of Adam as a corporate symbol as often as an individual man.
Yes and yes. Most of what Paul says in Romans 1 concerns the consequences of the Fall, but that is simply because he is concerned to show us the spiritual root of the thing, not just the facts of the matter. Oh, and in my scenario, “the man” also fell.
Look again. Paul says nothing about God establishing a relationship with the first man.
Thanks DonJ for your response. I agree that his work is a fine contribution, especially in his arguments against scientific concordism. As most around here would agree, God is clearly not teaching science or revealing his creative mechanisms in Genesis. But I’m not ready to dismiss the possibility that actual historical events are being conveyed stylistically through assorted literary tools-elevated language, metaphors (Gen 1-3), ancient numerology (Gen 5), chiastic structure of the flood story, etc. As Kenneth Kitchen’s writes: “The ancient Near East did not historicize myth (i.e. read it as imaginary “history”.) In fact, exactly the reverse is true—there was, rather, a trend to “mythologize” history, to celebrate actual historical events and people in mythological terms…”
Sometimes it’s tough to tell when historical narrative is being mythologized. But I think there’s a slippery-slope when we’re ready to dismiss potentially historic events as mythological (which also places precious theological truths at risk). For instance, in his footnotes at the back (ch. 7, pt. 17), Dr. Lamoureux says, “It seems that the book of Job is not a record of historical events. I doubt that Satan can enter God’s presence to debate him. It seems unlikely that the Creator would be so frivolous as to allow Job’s ten children to be murdered in order for Satan to prove a point.” My response: Really? Now we can question the historicity of Job because it offends our moral sensibilities about what a sovereign God would or would not do and our intuition of where Satan fits in? As I said, it’s a slippery-slope theologically, even if in heaven we find out that Dr. L was right about it as non-historical
Good points, Jason.
However, Kitchen wasn’t referring to the creation and flood myths of Marduk and Gilgamesh? --there were quite a few of those, including Atrahasis, weren’t there?
I agree that it can be a slippery slope, but I’m not sure where to draw the line. Greg Boyd in “Cross Vision” and “Crucifixion of the Warrior God” believes that Jesus, as He said he was a better revelation, was the best vision of God we have–and that the OT should be viewed in His light.
that’s possible. It doesn’t seem concordant with what we know of Jesus; and I think that some of it does sound allegorical.
I am not sure where to go on that, either. Randal Rauser critiques Lamoureux in an excellent review of Four Views of the Historical Adam. Rauser considers him a friend, but points out that he, too, can come to a God of the gaps point of view (by the way, the Counterpoints series on this really is helping me with contrasting the different views):An Evolving Evangelical Debate: A review of "Four Views on The Historical Adam" - Randal Rauser
By the way, the example of the demon-possessed man is a very good one of where I struggle as a physician–it sure sounds like epilepsy; and I think that God could have been using the science of the day to communicate God’s/Jesus’ control over epilepsy when everyone thought it was a demon. I don’t know what to think.
Denis Lamoureux (Evolutionary Creation)
Lamoureux is the author of a couple important books on evolution and theology, Evolutionary Creation and I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution. He also is the only contributor who has PhDs both in theology and science, and that provides him with a unique insight into the scientific case for evolution.
Lamoureux rejects a historical Adam. In his view, the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2 should be read as ancient science. For example, the text assumes an ancient cosmology which includes a flat earth embedded in a three-storied view of the universe (sheol below, heaven above). Genesis 1 references God separating the waters above from the waters below, and sealing the waters above in the raqia, a hard, dome surface that spans the flat globe. Christians now reject the raqia, the flat earth, and the three-storied universe as remnants of an obsolete view of the world. But this concession doesn’t undermine scripture. As Lamoureux explains, God accommodated to the science of ancient peoples to communicate theological truths in the worldview they could understand. It is the theological truths that are authoritative and inerrant, not the accoutrements of the now obsolete ANE science through which they were communicated.
Thus far, the argument will be relatively non-controversial. But Lamoureux then takes an additional step by arguing that the concept of a first human being (and thus a historical Adam) is as much a part of an obsolete view of the world as the three-storied universe. Consequently, to be consistent we should eschew “scientific concordism” (the attempt to draw points of contact and concord between particular biblical texts or doctrines and scientific data). Instead, we should recognize that God’s accommodation to an ANE worldview was even more radical than we previously imagined. And this means that we can recognize that Adam is non-historical as surely as the fact that the earth is not flat. In each case, theological truths remain secure.
As Lamoureux puts it, “Evolutionary creationists believe that the Creator established and maintains the laws of nature, including the mechanisms of a teleological evolution…. In other words, the evolution of life is a purpose-driven natural process.” (43) Lamoureux believes that just as God creates a new life in the womb through natural processes, so he evolved all creatures on earth through a natural process (44). This frees the theologian to accept the insights that come through scientific advance without engaging in a misbegotten effort to defend the Bible’s scientific credibility.
In my opinion, Lamoureux puts on the strongest showing. Admittedly, I may be biased, for I know Denis personally and count him a friend. But even with the recognition of my bias, it seems to me that his position is the most carefully wrought. I particularly appreciated his inclusion of several diagrams and charts to support his case as well as his close attention to pastoral and personal themes, a pre-emptive strike against those prepared to challenge his piety based on his theology.
That said, I have been known to criticize my friends, and this is no exception. My first (relatively minor) complaint is with the following statement:
“evolution is the easiest theory to disprove. Find just one human tooth near the bottom of the geological record and you could destroy evolutionary science.” (40)
I often hear folks make this kind of claim about evolution but I believe such claims to be grossly hyperbolic at best and outright false at worst. The claim seems to assume the truth of Karl Popper’s thesis that hypotheses and theories are identified as scientific because they are falsifiable. Thus, by pointing out that evolution hasn’t been falsified (despite the alleged ease with doing so), one establishes it both as a scientific theory and one that is especially good.
I agree that evolution is a scientific theory, and an especially good one at that. But I believe it is precisely because it is so good that Lamoureux’s claim is false. You see, good scientific theories are good precisely because they explain multiple independent lines of evidence. In other words, good scientific theories have consilience. And when a theory is successful in this way, it can tolerate a limited amount of anomalous, recalcitrant facts. For example, the supernova of 1054 was carefully recorded by Chinese astronomers but widely dismissed by European astronomers. The difference seems to have been that the latter were committed to a view that the heavens are static and do not change. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe which was held in Europe at the time was, like Darwinian evolution, a good theory that satisfied multiple independent lines of data. For that reason, western astronomers were willing to overlook a recalcitrant, disconfirming fact like the 1054 supernova. By the same token, given that multiple independent lines of evidence support Darwinian evolution, the theory can absorb some recalcitrant facts … like an anomalous tooth in the geological strata.
Now on to some more significant criticisms. I begin with Lamoureux’s rejection of scientific concordism combined with his interpretation of obsolete biblical science as accommodation. While this is a reasonable position to take, one can’t help but wonder how Lamoureux avoids sliding down a slippery slope toward more radical demythologization. Consider, for example, Jesus’ miraculous healings of a demon-possessed boy in Mark 9:14-29. In the passage we read that the boy is thrown to the ground, foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. This certainly matches the description of a tonic-clonic (epileptic) seizure. So why not interpret the “demonic” diagnosis as yet another accommodation to ancient science?
Lamoureux might try to halt the slide down the slope by reiterating that he accepts divine miracles. Fair enough, Lamoureux may still accept a miraculous healing occurred, but to be consistent it would seem he should interpret it as the healing of a tonic-clonic seizure rather than demon possession. In one very quotable line, Lamoureux observes, “It is worth noting that some Christians attempt to pin Adam on the tail end of evolution. However, this is categorically inappropriate.” (64) But then isn’t it likewise inappropriate to “pin the demon” on the tail of an epileptic seizure?
Next, let’s consider Lamoureux’s charge that Collins embraces “the God-of-the-gaps.” (177) In science/theology dialogue, this is the kiss of death, the facile invocation of God to explain some gap in human knowledge. Lamoureux claims that “Any divine being who acts ‘specially’ and ‘supernaturally’ in human origins is a God-of-the-gaps.” (178) Since Collins claims that God must act supernaturally to create the first human beings, by Lamoureux’s definition he is guilty as charged.
Unfortunately for Lamoureux, a good case can be made that he is also guilty of this odious charge. Lamoureux believes that God acted specially to create the universe, bringing it into existence out of non-being. If we recognize that God-of-the-gaps extends to any divine being acting ‘specially’ and ‘supernaturally’ in cosmic origins, then Lamoureux is guilty. So why wouldn’t we extend the principle? Perhaps Lamoureux might say that the origin of the universe is an exception because God is required as the absolute beginning. But that won’t do as a response given that physicists continue to work on closing that gap in our knowledge. The Hawking-Hartle is perhaps the best known attempt to close the gap, but many other proposals have been, and continue to be, defended. If we are to defer to the evolutionary biologist by conceding that the “human gap” can be closed, I don’t see why we wouldn’t likewise defer to the physicist that the “cosmic gap” can be closed. And thus, if Collins is guilty of the God-of-the-gaps in evolutionary biology, one might as well charge Lamoureux with God-of-the-gaps qua physical cosmology.
Lamoureux also got me thinking with that epilepsy case. Was Jesus accommodating to the science-of-the-day or was it really a demon? I’ve taken care of thousands of sick patients in US and Africa and though at times I’ve suspected demonic affliction I can’t say for sure whether I’ve seen a demon-possessed person or an exorcism. I’m guessing maybe it goes on more in the developing world in places where there’s more of an awareness of the spirit world.
Good point. I think @Christy, who is a missionary, has discussed that with me before too. Where did you work in Africa? Good for you. I’m an MK (missionary kid) from Niger (born in Nigeria, when my patients were on vacation). There was a big emphasis on the occult, even in majority Muslim or Christian (syncretistic) areas. I remember when one lady had what I thought was a conversion disorder–believing someone had cursed her–and was hospitalized. There was strong belief in flying carpets, possession (bori) and people wore amulets with Qur’an scraps in them for protection. I do tend to think that in a different culture, without so much emphasis on the scientific method throughout school (only about 20% are literate, less in the country), the default answer is more magic. I’m not discounting that miracles can happen–I believe in the Resurrection and that God does perform miracles, and I pray for wisdom and a reminder of God’s presence and guidance for my children daily. But my father once remarked that it would be very hard to actually prove any sort of miracle ever happened- God just doesn’t choose to do that outside of normal activities, very often.
Maybe so. I think what I am doing is saying there is no general revelation until God chooses to reveal himself and in my conception, that started with special revelation to some. I don’t have any great biblical arguments for it. Maybe it flows out of the Walton influenced idea that material creation could have existed for a very long time before God claimed it as his temple and took up his rule there. I can imagine early hominims having an intuition of the divine or of a Creator before God ever interacted with creation in a personally relational way as YHWH. I don’t think people were accountable for sin before that point.
I don’t really know what implications for the genealogies means. I think the genealogies have some ties to a history, even if it is a mythologized history. But mostly I am “resistant” to the idea that any human history could be passed down orally for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, as I have heard some people here propose. And the idea that some event from human pre-history was supernaturally revealed to the ancestors of the Israelites seems ad hoc to me, and I don’t find it as compelling as other potential explanations of why the text is the way it is and what it was trying to communicate to its original audience.
If Paul’s first man was the Adam of Genesis, then the relationship would be presumed because that is what Genesis describes. He doesn’t have to reiterate everything Genesis says, it would have been common ground with his listeners/readers.
Randy, that’s cool, your being an MK in Niger. We’ve been to Africa many times (almost annually), usually serving in Kenya with World Medical Mission, though next year it may be Ethiopia or Tanzania. I mostly cover for long-term missionary docs and help train the surgical residents. In exchange, they (the residents) help me improve my Swahili.
Or doesn’t Romans 1 imply that we are judged according to our lights? I really like the C S Lewis chapter in Aslan’s country in the Last Battle, where Emeth (“truth” or “faithfulness,”) the Calormene, who had thought he was doing right by serving Tash all his life, found that Aslan accepted his heart and intent–not because Aslan (who was good) and Tash (who was bad) were one, but because they were so different.
I don’t either. I do think that just knowing and accepting God’s truth in Christ is important for our spiritual health and happiness. As NT Wright wrote, Christ came to bring the kingdom of Heaven on Earth, more than salvation for the hereafter…
Denis Lamoureux wrote that taken in extremes, Christianity (and all religions, by extension, that are exclusive) can be very Darwinian. It is helpful to me to remember that God is just and loves those of us who have not heard (or understood; it’s somewhat hard to understand and accept the gospel, too, sometimes) as those who have not.
Whoa, I’ve been away too long. I think you’re on to something. I also think the essence of morality is far more naturalistic. Adherence to a moral code is better than nothing but far from the best we can do.
If I was Christian I would still prefer to think that the ten commandments were a good faith attempt to provide guidance at a level accessible to His audience. Or maybe, like so much of the O.T., it is just good general life advice, like what to eat or wear and so on.
But morality reduced to rule following is beneath the dignity of men, and far far beneath the dignity of His image carriers. To hear you bring this up is very uplifting for me. Sorry about being so late in responding. Sadly I’ll need to knock off and get to sleep before I catch up in the thread and I’m not sure when I’ll have time this weekend. (Family first, and my brother is bringing my niece, nephew and his wife over Monday.)
Greetings @MarkD. Enjoy your time with your family!
Having said that about the awareness of morality, though, don’t we all have a need for something greater than us? The video @Reggie_O_Donoghue posted at “Science and the benefits of morality” was very interesting–where working for a religious good was more than just breaking things down to its parts. Matt Dillahunty vs. Science - YouTube. It could reflect simply our drive to survive.
While I’m not really confident of the Eden story’s historicity, the concept that God would give a rule (not to eat of a certain fruit) implies that the moral code is not just about us, but about willingness to subjugate our personal wills to someone else’s, regardless of whether we understand or see the reasoning behind it.
While one could still argue that the ability to deny ourselves and follow a rule, no matter what its reason, is part of our evolved social consciousness for the better good (and thus, reflected in the video’s example of the improved self control achieved by those who are religious), it doesn’t rule out that there is a reason for it (God).
Having mused in that direction, one can’t just take a rule at face value without questioning it, either. I think that may be where you’re coming from. What frightens me about absolutism is if we take it to extremes, “The Qur’an says so, so it is right”–or “the Old Testament says so, so Numbers 31 is right”–. It can (and does) lead to religious fanaticism.
I’m not sure yet of the answer to this–certainly, there are dangers. I have a deep need for God, and the thought that only a belief in Someone greater than ourselves fills a void made by Him, as Constantine said, is reasonable. However, the fact that it works in practice doesn’t make it true… Thanks for your thoughts… I look forward to more.
So I’m not clear on whether the discussion has moved to the issue of whether a universal moral code exists or whether a sense of morality could have evolved naturalistically.
I recall conversations back in med school when “materialist” friends were arguing for moral relativism on the basis of cultural conditioning. To them, nothing was absolute, even our outrage at the most seemingly egregious act of abuse on a child could be explained naturalistically.
I explained that the bigger issue isn’t whether a universal moral code exists, but rather whether absolute truth exists (which my friends wanted to deny). I argued that naturalism (as a materialistic philosophy, not evolutionary process) is logically inconsistent. It claims that everything can be explained by natural processes and that nothing exists beyond the material world. But what about the rules of logic (among other things)? Naturalists take these for granted (e.g. non-contradiction) as a priori truths essential to proving anything. When they realized they were using the laws of logic (absolutely) to deny the absolute existence of the laws of logic, and that they could not disprove anything I was saying apart from logic, they ordered another round of beers.
The issue of whether absolute truth exists is more fundamental than whether there is a universal moral code. Naturalism is either too naive or too dishonest to concede the existence of the absolute truths of the rules of logic that it takes for granted a priori in attempting to prove anything.
Sorry that I wasn’t clear. I was more interested in why you were resistant to the general idea of interpreting Genesis 2-3 in an ancient context, not why you were resistant to my thoughts in particular. (I just assume you will be resistant to those. Haha.) By “the implications for the genealogies,” I simply meant the fact that you mentioned, which is the impossibility of being passed down orally for tens of thousands of years. For some people, that is the main problem. For others, the main problem is Romans 5. I was just curious about the main reason that you favored a more recent interpretation of “the man.”
I think it is a Hebrew origin story. Since the Hebrews are a relatively recent people group and probably had no concept of deep time or the evolution of humanity, I don’t think that is what the text is referring to. I don’t see any realistic oral history connection between the Hebrew people group and events that happened in Africa tens or hundreds of thousands of years prior. I am resistant to interpretations that impose our modern notions of humanity and knowledge of natural history on to the text. I don’t think it has to be describing THE fall. It is describing the fall of their ancestors, which is framed in archetypical terms, because all humans fall. Don’t most ancient cultures tell origin stories where their ancestors are the first people?
Yes, I agree with all of that. You’re trying to read between the lines, but I haven’t given an interpretation of the text. I’ve only described certain correspondences to history. There are many more, but there are just as many “discords” as there are “concords.” My actual view, just in case you wondered, is similar to Middleton’s Reading Genesis 3 Attentive to Human Evolution: Beyond Concordism and Non-Overlapping Magisteria
