Why put that stumbling block before science?
It’s not a stumbling block. Science can’t detect God’s guidance and so doesn’t include it in their theory. Scripture can’t explain accurately how things work in the real world. So there is no overlap between the two.
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That doesn’t answer the question. Why must faith precede science?
Now that is a good question.
Perhaps “must” is not a good adjective.
If you ar going to pt god above all else then…
If not
Well, you get the idea
Richard
One of the target audiences of BioLogos ALREADY places faith before
science. One method of reconciliation is to go to where the audience IS,
not to where you want them to be.
So, by exploring GAE themes of teleology, time frame, and Pre-Adamite
populations, the cognitive patterns that support their thinking can become
more fluid and adaptable to ideas found in science.
They fail miserably.
I am sure there are some that put faith before science but that would only be their choice. For me the two are equally yoked to use a Biblical example.
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Anyone who puts anything before God might want to take a peak at the first commandment.
Vinnie
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So how do you source science in the supernatural?
I think I posted this before, but I remember a quote from Lausanne, I think, where a Christian apologist said that he hoped his Christian faith was true, acted like it was, but was willing to test and change it if disproven.
What do you think is their most reasonable line of dispute?
I’m not quite sure what specific failures you mean….
GAE. Did that absurd contrivance leverage anyone a step to the left? Does John Walton’s? Doesn’t the law of diminishing returns apply?
To be honest, your questions don’t always make sense to me. What does it mean to “source science”? IMHO, you don’t find science in the supernatural or vice-versa.
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Thanks Bill, It’s truly encouraging to have discovered BioLogos. It’s exciting to find a place to engage with others passionate about Scripture, science, and theology.
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I’ve noticed that several comments on this forum express concern about the Genealogical Adam and Eve (GAE) scenario, particularly how it relates to traditional understandings of original sin and its universal reach. I completely understand the hesitation; many of us have long connected a historical Adam directly to the mechanism by which sin, guilt, and death affect all humanity.
That said, I believe we can—and perhaps should—separate these two questions. Perhaps these two ideas do not have to stand or fall together:
Idea 1: The historical reality of Adam, Eve, the Garden, the two trees, the deception, the fall, and the expulsion
Idea 2: The effects of the fall and it’s possible reach to all people inside and/or those outside the garden— whether through federal headship, seminal inheritance, or even if its direct effects were limited to Adam and Eve while broader humanity experiences a fallen world in other ways.
Rejecting the first idea risks unraveling Scripture’s larger arc: the loss and promised restoration of sacred space, humanity’s vocation as God’s imagers to a broken world, the parallels of Christ as the Second Adam who obeys where the first disobeyed, restored access to the Tree of Life, and—most gloriously—the idea of imputation, where Jesus takes our sin upon Himself on the cross while imputing His perfect righteousness to us. All of this culminates in the ultimate reunion of God’s two families in the New Jerusalem, where death is swallowed up forever. These foundational ideas seem scripturally bound to the reality of GAE and the garden story.
As someone still relatively new to these alternative approaches to the effects of the fall, I’d genuinely love to hear how others navigate this distinction.
Your two ideas aren’t unlinked. With no historical Adam (or unnamed person) how do you get to a fall?
Sorry but I don’t agree. You are starting to sound like Ken Ham. If you cut out Genesis 1-11 does it really change the rest of the Bible? Remember Adam was barely mentioned in the rest of the Hebrew Bible and Eve wasn’t. Couldn’t we work out who this Adam was supposed to represent?
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I don’t want to nitpick as I am favorable to the GAE but why do the two trees have to be historical? Can they not simply represent something?
And imputation of Adam’s sin is going to open a big can of worms. I understand original sin as a deprivation of original justice. It’s a stain or sin only in an analogical sense.
You will find some here who will dispute your interpretation of Paul. We have that discussion going on now in a few topics.
Vinnie
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IMO, an Adam functions less as a scientific claim than as a conceptual stopping point: without one, the human story risks collapsing into “cats all the way down,” an infinite regress of moral brokenness with no intelligible point of origin.
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Thank you for raising this important question about the image of God—it’s at the very heart of the reading I’m proposing, and I appreciate the chance to clarify.
To be as clear as possible about my own view in the essay: I do contend that Adam and Eve were the first to bear God’s image, in the sense of receiving a unique priestly vocation as Yahweh’s representatives and messengers. In the ancient context, “image of God” often functioned like royal imagery—kings or priests set apart to mediate the deity’s presence and rule to the wider world. I see Genesis 2 portraying Adam and Eve as specially commissioned in Eden to cultivate sacred space, reflect Yahweh’s glory, and expand that fellowship outward—essentially serving as God’s “imagers” inviting the broader human family into relationship with Him.
This means that, in my reading, biologically human people outside the garden did not yet bear that specific imager-vocation before Adam and Eve’s creation. They were still fully human, deeply loved by God, and capable of relationship with Him—but the formal assignment to represent and mediate His presence began with the couple in Eden.
I recognize this is a minority view (even among those open to GAE models), and many here affirm that all humans from their emergence bore the image ontologically or relationally. My goal wasn’t to insist this is the only way, but to explore how this vocational reading fits the ancient temple-garden theme and resolves some science-Scripture tensions while preserving a real historical turning point in Eden.
If this distinction still raises concerns—or if I’ve misstated the standard views here—I’d genuinely love to learn more from your perspectives.
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When God came to earth he was murdered. Paradigm shifts take time. GAE may very much catch on but it is still somewhat new and not very well known yet. I believe we have turned a few corners that will allow things to change for the better.
And as far as an “absurd contrivance” goes, finding a fit for two truth claims that seem at odds is a rational thing to do. As I wrote in my version of the GAE
Keep in mind that I do not claim to be able to prove everything I mention below. This is an exercise in showing how we can harmonize a specific interpretation of scripture with what we know from science. It assumes that both provide true descriptions of reality and works out a compatible solution from there. I do not think it is far-fetched as it does not revise any doctrine but changes how we understand the facts leading to that doctrine. James Chastek from the Just Thomism blog notes, “The revision that is called for is not a revision in doctrine but a move from the simplest set of facts congruent with a doctrine to a less simple set of facts congruent with the same doctrine.” With that caveat out of the way, here is the story of humanity’s genesis.
When two pieces of data don’t seem to fit and we think both are true or very good descriptions of reality, we try to find a way to make them fit. Is the notion of quantum gravity an “absurd contrivance” to you as well?
Your hatred of our religion while trying to force your own religion on us that attempts to make materialistic- atheism the status quo is not only intellectually risible, but it’s gotten very stale. New atheism saw its peak. It’s over. Come back and join the rest of us in the sun.
Vinnie
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