The third
grade Sunday School teacher is stumped as his student distills the problem Charles
Darwin laid at our feet: “Who came first, Adam or the dinosaurs?”
Neo-Darwinian
evolution raises the question of how the narratives of archaeology and the
Bible interrelate, if at all. And for the purposes of this post, it poses the
question of whether Adam was a single, historical human being or not. And if
not—if Adam was not uniquely fashioned by the Creator’s hand—what then do we
make of his fall from grace?
This, and
much more in the news, certainly makes this question of Adam—and Eve—pertinent. Were they
historical?
There are
two poles on a spectrum of Christian responses for relating Adam and Eve to the theory
of evolution. On the one hand, there is the approach of the literal Adam: Although many do not hold to this view, I want to
make room for this perspective. It has an entirely respectable history, and many
thoughtful Christians today hold this view. I hope not to forfeit their good
will if I, in the end, offer differing conclusions. We cannot completely discount
the possibility that God specially created the literal Adam and Eve. God can do
unusual acts. In this view, Genesis 1 and 2 present an historical description
of the first human beings. God specially created the first human beings, Adam
and Eve. They initially lived in perfect relationship with God and their
environment. By an abuse of free will—eating the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil—they severed these relationships. Human beings lives
under the curse of their sin but can be redeemed through the obedience of one
“new Adam,” Jesus Christ. Though even earlier theological heavy weights like
Augustine and Origen represented contrasting interpretations, this view has
garnered strong support over the centuries. It offers a relatively straightforward
reading of Genesis 1-3, and makes sense of God’s making creation originally
“good,” and then falling to its current state. It also offers a space-time fall
from grace, and the response of a space-time redemption in Jesus Christ.
To be
honest, it also has considerable difficulties: for example, the word adam is simply a generic name for “the
human being.” The texts themselves slide between adam as a generic “human being” (Genesis 1:26; 4:25) and as “the adam” (1:27; 2:7-8, 15-16, 18-23, 25;
3:8-9, 12, 20, 22, 24). Theologically and ethically, it’s also hard for many to
understand that by this one man’s sin, all subsequent human beings are cursed
to death and separation from God. It is difficult to reconcile with the
macroevolution of human beings from earlier life forms, especially the recent
discovery that the smallest grouping of early humanoids was about 1500. For
this and other reasons, it is an uphill push against the weight of scientific
evidence.
The other alternative might be
called the typological Adam. Many
today read Genesis as a representation of human existence, in which Adam
represents a type of human being. Many Christians believe that to be thoughtful
believers in an age of science means accepting macroevolution. Today’s homo sapiens evolved from earlier
primates. This view understands Adam as a type or representative for our
existence as human beings who struggle to use or freedom responsibly. In this
view, hominoid evolution involves the dawning of self- and God-consciousness. As
one of the leading commentators on religion and science, Cambridge professor John Polkinghorne, has
written:
At some stage, the lure of self and the lure of the divine
came into competition and there was a turning away from the pole of the divine
Other and a turning into the pole of the human ego. Our ancestors became, in
Luther’s phrase, “curved in upon themselves.” We are heirs of that culturally
transmitted orientation. One does not need to suppose that this happened in a
single decisive act; it would have been a stance that formed and reinforced
itself through a succession of choices and actions. Death did not come into the
world for the first time but rather mortality, the sad recognition of human
finitude.
Thus Adam’s
creation and subsequent fall are what we all face—a creation in God’s image
toward freedom as well as the pull to use that freedom destructively. Like
Adam, we are glorious and horrible. And though we are currently in this state
of fallenness, the historical life and work of Jesus of Nazareth redeems us.
And I don’t
want to miss this affirmation: The key
for Christians is Christ and his salvation. For that salvation, we need to be
in state of need. It doesn’t really matter whether Adam was a representative
type or an historical person, it matters that we are fallen and that through
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are redeemed.
Therefore,
although I affirm a commitment to creation by God over evolution, fortunately I
am not compelled to choose between the two. In fact, the doctrine of creation
makes two primary affirmations: we are created in God’s image, and the world is
not fully consistent with God’s intentions. We can also be open to reading the
Bible and seeing Adam as a type and representative for all humanity. Put another
way,
Put simply,
Christians believe God created us and our world. We can remain open as to how this was accomplished it and avoid dictating the best way for God to create. Instead
we are to look concretely and openly at the evidence as to how God has created
(in this case, largely through the evolutionary processes). And we
confess as Christians that, like Adam, we are created good, but we have chosen
to be separated from God, and therefore we have responded to redemption in
Jesus Christ.
