Animal Death: Comprehending the World through Scripture

Certainly, we live in a fallen world where sin and death pervade every aspect of life. Nevertheless, we need to comprehend that world of sin and death as taught by Scripture and not based upon our personal preferences of how the world should work. I say this because I was reminded this week of a seminary professor who wrote an article against biological evolution based upon his distaste of a scene from a TV nature show which depicted a pig being eaten by a python. This professor asked the question: Is this what God intended for his creation? Naturally, his answer was in the negative. I, however, decided to dip into the Scriptures and determine how God views the animal kingdom. I was drawn to the following verses about God from Psalm 104:20-21:

“You make darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.”

I interpret from these verses that God created animals to eat and be eaten. Whether we like it or not, God is perfectly content for the animal kingdom to struggle their lives away hunting, evading, searching, defending, devouring, being eating, and dying.

Think of it this way: why did God give some animals claws and jaws to eat meat? Why did God give some animals the ability to hide and evade being caught long enough to reproduce? It’s not from Adam’s sin that skunks spray and anteaters have long tongues. God created them that way. I’m reminded of that scene in the film Master and Commander where the young shipman examines a stick bug (who uses his appearances to hide from predators) and asks the physician/naturalist whether God made them that way.

Indeed, God (and his Son) seems to have no problem with the death of animals (Genesis 3:21; John 21:9). Nevertheless, God does care for animals (Matthew 6:26; Numbers 23:27-30).

This is why we need the Scriptures to help navigate our understanding of truth and creation. Without it, we may find ourselves preferring a reality of our own liking and not one that coheres to reality.

Seminary president says evolution 'incompatible' with Christian faith

[I'm a bit busy at the moment and unable take the couple of minutes necessary to refute the silly arguments of Dr. Mohler's gross ignorance of the Scriptures and evolutionary theory. Not that Karl Giberson, vice president of the BioLogos Foundation, does much better defending his position. But I have argued the point elsewhere. You can find my many articles on the subject below under "Evolution".]

By Bob Allen
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- According to the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, evolution and Christianity are not compatible.

"The theory of evolution is incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ even as it is in direct conflict with any faithful reading of the Scriptures," Albert Mohler, head of the Louisville, Ky., school, wrote in his blog.

Mohler's Aug. 25 blog posting was an open letter in response to an Aug. 21 Huffington Post article that accused him of making false statements about Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who originated the concept of natural selection to explain the diversity of life.

Karl Giberson, vice president of the BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group formed to promote harmony between science and faith, reacted in the Huffington Post to comments critical of Darwin by Mohler delivered June 19 at an annual conference of Ligonier Ministries, founded by Calvinist theologian and pastor R.C. Sproul.

Giberson first questioned Mohler's critique of Darwin in an open letter July 6 on the BioLogos website. After waiting two months for a response, Giberson concluded in the Huffington Post article that Mohler "does not seem to care about the truth and seems quite content to simply make stuff up when it serves his purpose."

In his June speech, Mohler argued for the "exegetical and theological necessity" of affirming the universe is no more than several thousand years old and was created in six 24-hour days as recorded in Genesis.

Mohler said Bible passages like Romans 8 attribute death, pain and disaster to the fall of Adam as recorded in Genesis 3.

"We end up with enormous problems if we try to interpret a historical fall and understand a historical fall in an old-Earth rendering," Mohler said, referring to the school of interpretation that views a metaphorical reading of the creation passages in Genesis as compatible with both Christianity and evolutionary science. "This is most clear when it comes to Adam's sin."

"Was it true that, as Paul argues, when sin came, death came?" Mohler asked. "Well just keep in mind that if the Earth is indeed old, and we infer that it is old because of the scientific data, the scientific data is also there to claim that long before the emergence of Adam -- if indeed there is the recognition of a historical Adam -- and certainly long before there was the possibility of Adam's sin, there were all the effects of sin that are biblically attributed to the fall and not to anything before the fall. And we're not only talking about death, we're talking about death by the millions and billions."

Giberson, author of Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, objected primarily in the Huffington Post article to Mohler's suggestion that evolution was "invented" to prop up Darwin's worldview rather than to explain observations in the natural world. He called it a "common misrepresentation" that evangelicals use to discredit evolution.

In his earlier blog post, however, Giberson questioned other statements in Mohler's address. They included: "We need to recognize that disaster ensues when the book of nature or general revelation is used in some way to trump Scripture and special revelation."

"I am taking you to mean that we should not let information from outside the Bible change our minds about what is inside the Bible," Giberson wrote.

"The example in your talk would suggest that information from geological records, radioactive dating, cosmic expansion and so on -- all of which suggests that the universe is billions of years old -- should not persuade us to set aside the natural reading of Genesis which suggests that the Earth is young," he wrote. "Is this a fair statement of your position?"

Giberson observed that the "natural reading" of Psalm 93 is that the Earth is fixed and cannot be moved. "Indeed this was thrown at Galileo and got him in trouble for proposing an 'unbiblical' astronomy."

He said "natural" readings of other Bible passages also suggest that slavery is OK and the moon is a light-creating body similar to the sun and "not just a big rock."

"Is there not a long list of examples where general revelation has forced us to set aside special revelation?" Giberson asked in his open letter to Mohler.

Mohler conceded in his blog to one statement that "appears to misrepresent to some degree Darwin's intellectual shifts before and during his experience on the Beagle" but otherwise proclaimed that "I stand by my address in full." He said he plans to address some of the issues raised by Giberson in the coming months.

"If your intention in Saving Darwin is to show 'how to be a Christian and believe in evolution,' what you have actually succeeded in doing is to show how much doctrine Christianity has to surrender in order to accommodate itself to evolution," Mohler admonished Giberson.

"In doing this, you and your colleagues at BioLogos are actually doing us all a great service. You are showing us what the acceptance of evolution actually costs, in terms of theological concessions."

PC Answers Questions to a Doctoral Student on Evolution and Religion

Last year a doctoral student at a university in Tennessee discovered my blog and a few discussions on Baptist online forums of which I had taken parting 2003. The student was researching the issue of evolution and religion for his dissertation, and I am apparently one of only a handful of evangelical Baptists that accepts the theory of biological evolution. Doesn’t speak well to the validity of my position, does it?

Nevertheless, the student sent me a few questions whose answers I shall now post.

First, are you currently a Baptist pastor?

No. I am a Baptist looking for a ministry in which to pastor.

I’ve pastored in churches in Texas and North Carolina.

I’m a son of a Baptist pastor and a grandson of Baptist missionaries.

Oddly enough, while I have been looking for ministry work in Southern Baptist churches, my wife and I have been attending a Methodist church here in Ohio, partly because it is like a Southern Baptist church we enjoyed in Texas.

And just this past Sunday, the pastor (a conservative and an inerrantist) made an aside comment that Christians should not be beating each other up over evolution.


Second, many people with whom I've talked have told me that the SBC has gotten increasingly fundamentalist in the last couple of decades. Would you agree with that? Any comments on it?

I include this lengthy response because I it might be of interest to you.

Yes, that is unfortunately true. I have fundamentalist friends and family, and I both love them and thoroughly enjoy ministering with them. And while I do not agree with many of their distinct positions, I don’t care that they have them.

The SBC has always been a very conservative body of Christian believers. The vast majority are conservatives in which there is a very large block of fundamentalists of various sorts. There have always been a significant minority of moderate Baptists and a very insignificant minority of liberals. The leadership of the SBC was made up of moderates and conservatives.

As I’m sure you are very much aware, the issues of biological evolution and the interpretation of the Bible caused tremendous controversy in the SBC during the 20th century. Under pressure from fundamentalists and conservatives, the SBC leadership wrote a confession of faith in 1925 and amended it in 1963. Both of these versions state the orthodox Christian beliefs that God created the world and that the Bible is authoritative. Moderates and many conservatives sought to be present an inclusive document.

However, in the 1980s, conservatives (with fundamentalist leaders) began to use their denominational leadership positions to reform the structure of the SBC to prevent anyone but conservatives from being appointed to positions in the organization. At the same time, conservatives began to fire all the non-conservatives that were already in SBC positions. They also fired conservatives who were critical of the other firings and the takeover. This continued through the 1990s and culminated in the conservatives and fundamentalists amending the confession of faith in 2000. After it was adopted, every employee of the SBC was required to sign this document or be fired. Many, many were fired or made a hasty retreat before they were. By itself, the implementation of this confession and its fall out had the SBC reeling from the inside out.

However, the 1963 version of the confession included a prologue that explicitly stated that this document was “not to be used to hamper freedom of thought or investigation in other realms of life.” This allowed SBC employees (particularly seminary professors) from holding positions contrary to the 2000 confession just so long as they do not teach or preach otherwise. The last decade of the SBC has been repeated incidences of fundamentalist weeding these employees out and getting them fired.

What occurred in the SBC seminaries during the 1990s and 2000s has now begun to occur in Baptist colleges such as Carson Newman in TN and, most recently, at Truett-McConnell College in Georgia which plans to become the first Baptist college to require its faculty to affirm the 2000 confession.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4671/53/
Many of the same fundamentalist leaders are involved.

None of the three Baptist confessions (even the fundamentalist penned version of 2000) reference the issue of evolution either explicitly or implicitly.

http://www.sbc.net/bfm/default.asp

But there are many issues important to SBC fundamentalists on which there is less than solid convention support. And there is very little support for amending the Baptist confession.

Therefore, for the past few years, the fundamentalist leadership of the SBC has been using the trustee system of the various convention agencies, including the seminaries, to enact theological standards which would not pass via the regular practice of convention vote.

I mention all this because if you’re asking about the SBC becoming increasingly fundamentalistic and how this relates to evolution and education (particularly in TN), then this is what has been done to the Baptist seminaries and what is now being done at the Baptist colleges.


Third, and this is related to the second question, how common are your views on evolution among evangelicals? As I said, from my own perspective, they seem extremely rare.

From my perspective, I assume that they are very rare too. Most evangelicals seem to associate biological evolution with atheism.

But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that most Southern Baptists who accept the theory of biological evolution would keep it to themselves.

Obviously, biological evolution isn’t mentioned in 2000 plus year old documents that make of the Bible. It’s certainly unessential to the Faith. A Christian can reject evolution and still have a healthy and productive spiritual life. And it’s not an issue with which the average pastor, religious teacher, or church confronts. Combined with its controversial nature, for a pastor or religious teacher to announce their support for the theory would only be a distraction from the essentials.

In my four years at seminary, I never heard a professor state their position on the issue. Only one student ever stated his position to me and only through commenting on my blog. During that time, I only heard two SBC leaders make statements at seminary denouncing biological evolution, and both of them are two of the three recognized individuals who led the Fundamentalist takeover of the convention.

Given this and all I mentioned regarding the Fundamentalist takeover of the convention, I think it’s quite understandable that many SBC employees and pastors would keep their position quiet.


Fourth, in the baptist discussion board I read when you were talking about Brady Tarr, you were talking about reading Genesis as an apocalyptic text. What do you mean by that? I'm afraid I'm not theologically trained.

It was a hypothesis I had then that I have yet to pursue any further than you have read. I have only met one Old Testament scholar (a friend) who holds this position. I’ve never seen it in any other paper, article, or book that I can find.

The Apocalyptic genre of literature essentially presents a “spiritual” interpretation of history. It offers a “behind-the-scenes” view of what is going on with particular events and peoples and how it relates to God and the writer of the apocalyptic work’s intended audience. Apocalyptic literature is popularly known to focus on future events, but it just as often comments on present and past events. The Biblical books of Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah are prime examples but there are others in and outside the Jewish and Christian canons.

Apocalyptic literature will use symbolism, word play, exaggerated actions, fantastic creatures, “angelic beings”, truncated history, and otherworldly scenarios. This Biblical genre has a lot in common with basic dreams and many apocalyptic passages will occur in the context of a dream (Daniel chapters 2, 4, and 7; but also, as I will argue one day, Genesis 28, 40, and 41). The first three chapters of Genesis contain symbolism, puns and word play, fantastic talking animals, “angelic beings”, and many other apocalyptic characteristics that I’ll argue. The connection to the Tree of Life in Revelation 22:2 is my favourite.

But even though my apocalyptic argument has yet to be made, many other evangelical and conservative scholars who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and the Genesis story hold the story to be figurative but true because its genre (whether poem, psalm, apocalypse, “myth”, short-story, etc.) permits to be non-literal but true.

Ask a fundamentalist about whether he or she believes that the book of Revelation is true. Naturally, he or she will say yes that they do, even though it is written in symbolic, non-literal language.


Fifth, have you been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky? I don't think it's far from you, but I figured you'd have blogged about it if you had gone. Any comments on it?

I have not been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.


It was this question of which I was reminded while reading the Baptist Press article on “Noah’s Ark”. The Baptist Press quoted a statement from Answers in Genesis, the apologetics ministry that operates the Creation Museum just outside of Cincinnati. I currently live just over an hour away from the museum but have yet to visit.

Reassessing the Pre-Fallen World: Distinguishing Between What We like and What God Likes

Let us ask tough questions about what the world would look like if Man had not fallen into sin. As believers of God in Christ we should not fear difficult questions; we should relish the opportunity to expand our knowledge of God’s creation. Therefore:

- Would animals kill other animals? I’ve asked this question before with reference to the fact that God created most animals with the ability to hunt and kill and created most animals with the ability to hide from hunters.

- Would mosquitoes and bees exist? Would insects fly around sucking the blood of particular animals? Would bees have stingers? Would flies swarm around wallowing pigs?

- Would people get sunburns?

- Would calluses form on the bottom of people’s feet from continued walking?

- Would people get wrinkles? How about wrinkles under the eyes from laughing?

- Would the earth have strong winds, thunder storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc?

- Would meteorites fall from the sky?

- Our bodies were created by God with natural defenses against various foreign anomalies. If what these bodily defenses are resisting are solely outcomes of the fallen world, then God created our bodies in anticipation for this fall. If man had thus not fallen, our bodies would contain purposeless functions. Indeed, we would have body functions that could only find their fullness in a fallen world.

I ask these questions not necessarily to spur controversy or shake people’s theological conception in so much as I wish to incite thought on the part of the Christian.

We as Christians are like every other person created by God in that we will often see something that we personally do not like. In a fallen world this goes without saying. However, as Christian believers, we often see something we do not like and then assume that the Bible must have something condemnatory to say about whatever it is we personally dislike. In many cases the Bible is silent on an issue but we as orthodox believers will nevertheless misread into the text that which we wish to condemn. Certainly it’s easier to publicly condemn something if we have the Bible backing us up.

Unfortunately, we may often condemn that which we may personally dislike even when the Bible gives its approval. Relevant examples include: alcohol consumption, private prayer language, stringed instruments in worship, female pastors, women working outside the home, pacifism, etc.

Coming from a conservative background, there were many theological and Scriptural truths that rubbed against my grain (female pastors, women working outside the home, alcohol consumption). However, in order to be consistent with the Word of God I had to overcome this problem. In truth, the problem I had with women in ministry was my problem and not the problem of the women who minister. I had to pray for strength and understanding so that I could accept what God accepts, indeed what God commands.

I learned that I could not allow my personal, subjective tastes to govern my theology and inform me of what God likes and doesn’t like. To this day, there are many things in the Church which I dislike but which I can find no Scriptural basis to condemn. What do I do? I keep my mouth shut and try to get over it.

Therefore, I submit to you that there are many things in our world which we as humans and Christians dislike and think to be wrong but which God has absolutely no problem. “Animals eating other animals” appears to be one of them. Apparently God has no problem with pythons swallowing pigs. Indeed, God created pythons for that purpose.

Did God intend animals to never die? Where do the Scriptures make this assertion? Where does God state that he will give animals not made “in the image of God” eternal life with an incorruptible body? Nowhere that I can find. In fact, not only does God not seem to mind animals killing other animals, he does not mind humans killing other animals. Did not Christ prepare some fish for his disciples to eat (John 21:9)?

We may not like the idea of “animals eating other animals”, but let us not base our theology on our likes and dislikes.

Also, God apparently has no problem with a world where human beings have some modicum of pain or unpleasantness. My evidence?

To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16)

Notice that the Lord does not say I will give the woman pain in childbirth. Instead, the Lord states that he will multiply her pains, implying that even in an unfallen world a woman would have had childbirth pains.
We may not like the idea that “women have pain in childbirth”, but let us not base our theology on our likes and dislikes.

And let us not recreate paradise in our own minds based upon our personal likes, dislikes, annoyances, tastes, frustrations and human conception of what makes life good or bad. Such conceptions may not be God’s.

It is in this regard that I urge evangelical Christians to reassess some of the traditional conceptions of what the pre-Fallen world was like.

Such a reassessment must be based upon the witness of Scriptures, but our interpretation of the Scriptures must be tempered by historic traditions, human reason and human experience. Reason and experience (along with tradition) will help us interpret what the Scriptures teach but they will also help us in areas where the Scriptures are silent.

Factors of major consideration should include:

- The non-literal nature of both creation stories in Genesis 1-3.

- Jesus Christ as full revelation of both Man and God.

- God’s own direct statements about creation; the figurative poems of the prophetic books; the wisdom literature

- Various scientific evidence, formulations, theories and models

- Similarities and differences between Greek and Hebrew conceptions of creation

- Hard questions like the ones I asked above

I believe that if evangelical theology is going to have any relevancy or contribution for Christian cosmology, we need to base our theological conceptions upon an accurate reading of what Scripture says and what it does not say. Otherwise, we will continue to tinker with our own favorite, self-made toys.

On the Death of Animals

Here is a puzzle about the nature of the earth prior to the Fall of Man.

One of the traditional beliefs among some conservative Christian groups is that prior to Adam’s sin the situation of the earth there was absolutely NO DEATH either spiritual or physical of any kind. Thus, this view states that not only did Man not face death prior to the Fall but neither did Animals. In fact, the killing of Animals was an unknown idea prior to the Fall. In other words, lions, tigers, and eagles did not hunt and kill smaller Animals for food. Such carnivore deaths are a result of the Fall and not a result of God’s intended creation. If the Fall had not occurred, it is reasoned, then Animals would not be killing other Animals for food but killing plants for food.

(What Venus fly traps would be eating is still a mystery. I have heard that plants are not a part of the “death” consequences of the Fall. I am not sure where insects and fish are categorized. I really do not know where those insects which look like sticks are found either.)

Thus, we have noted scholars writing anti-evolutionary articles for the BP about pythons swallowing pigs whole and how this cannot be God’s intention. Indeed, one of the major problems many conservative Christians have with evolution and old earth geology is not simply that it theorizes a progressive change of God’s creation over long periods of time but that it necessitates the view that Animals died before Man even existed, let alone before Man fell into sin. Furthermore, it presumes that Man’s biological ancestors were also subject to physical death. Thus, the view among some conservative Christian groups is that death could not have existed before the Fall of Man into sin.

But there is a real problem with this view.

1) Examine the carnivore Animals of God’s creation: lions, cheetahs, eagles, bear, vultures, wolves, sharks, etc. They are DESIGNED BY GOD TO HUNT AND KILL OTHER ANIMALS. The teeth, the claws, the speed, and the senses – it is all designed to find, chase down, kill, tear apart and devour other Animals.

2) Examine many of the Animals of God’s creation that are hunted by carnivores: deer, skunks, porcupines, elephants, rhinoceroses, fish, lizards, rabbits, etc. They are DESIGNED BY GOD TO ESCAPE, DEFEND AND HIDE FROM OTHER ANIMALS. The camouflage, the speed, the defensive capabilities are a part of their being. These capabilities assume a life of potential death and the ability to kill and avoid being killed.

If we state hold to a traditional theological view that Animals were not originally intended by God to kill each other as a part of his “good” earth, then how do we explain that they were created with the potential to do so?

There are a few possible explanations:

1) God intention in creating Animals was for them to never kill each other. However, since God knew that Man would Fall and send the Animal kingdom in a killing disorder, he purposely created them with the abilities to kill other animals and also avoid being killed.

For obvious reasons, this is not a very satisfying explanation.

2) God never intended Animals to kill each other and did not create them with that potential. However, after the Fall, Animals developed the properties and abilities to kill other animals and also avoid being killed. Thus, the curse upon the earth by Adam resulted in “Lions” acquiring claws, teeth, and scary roars. This is a theory held by many “Creationists”, however, there are problems. Essentially, those who advocate this theory are arguing for a form of biological evolution occurring, albeit in rapid time. They are arguing that over a very short period of time Animals changed or evolved from peaceful herbivores to villainess carnivores as a result of the Fall. Also, Animals evolved from creatures not needing to defend themselves into creatures that with the ability to defend themselves.

The irony of this position is that it is the very position held by biological evolutionists. The only difference is one of time. Biological evolutionists believe that Animals adapted to the needs necessary for their survival over periods of millions of years. Those “Creationists” who hold to the position above believe that Animals adapted to the needs necessary for their survival over periods of a few years or less.

The “Creationist” version of this theory is not a very satisfying explanation either. If we then hold that Animals changed over a brief period of time in order to adapt to their environment, we are actually assenting to the biological evolutionist view. With this admission, combined with the fossil record and the various dating methods available, I prefer to hold to the biological evolutionary theory.

3) Since I hold to the biological evolutionary theory, I believe that God’s creation of Animals was a process of development to meet the environmental needs of these creatures. The distinction between my belief and the previous belief in this respect is that I agree with biological evolutionists that the process was one of millions of years and not a few years or less.

But a distinction between myself and the first tow theories is that I do not see the death of Animals as a result of the Fall. I won’t go into too much detail about this belief now except for the following statement:

Animals are not created in the “image of God” and do not have the ability to relate to God on a personal level. Animals are created out of nothing and go back into nothing. They are never promised immortality by God and have done nothing to either gain or lose such an eternal state. Thus, their death is not a bad thing; it is a natural thing. The killing of an animal is not in of itself a bad thing and is never treated as such in the Scriptures. Animals were created and destroyed long before God created Man and God is perfectly fine with the natural order of animals killing other animals and attempting to avoid being killed. God created them for such an existence and, thus, that is their existence. Such an existence would have continued even if Man had not fallen into sin. The death of an Animal by another Animal is no more out of the realm of God’s intention for Creation than the death of a plant by an Animal. We may not like this scenario, but that is nevertheless the scenario God has deemed appropriate for his Creation.

The Man-made Argument for "Man made in the Image of God": An Argument Against the Complementarian View of God (Made by a Man Who Has It Made as a Man)

A new theological doctrine has emerged in our time; a doctrine which has emerged due to the emergence of feminism in evangelicalism. For centuries since the time when the teachings of Jesus and Paul on the feminine had long since been forgotten, ignored or misunderstood, the Church believed that Scripture taught that woman was inferior to man. The advent of Renaissance humanism, the individualism of the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent philosophical, sociological and scientific knowledge that accompanied the Enlightenment changed man’s understanding of both the human individual and human social and sexual natures. Such changes in understanding led to similar changes in how the Church and individual Christians interpreted Scripture (one massive change was the Reformation dictum of sola scriptura and the realization that the meaning of Scripture is not dependant upon the interpretation of Church leaders). Just as the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo changed how man viewed the creation and interpreted the Scriptural teachings about creation, so the arrival of social studies and the sexual revolution reformed the way many Christians (including conservative Christians) looked at male-female relations and the Scriptural teachings on the matter.

Thus moderate to liberal Christianity moved from a complementarian understanding of gender roles to an egalitarian position. Conservative Christianity, however, moved from an hierarchical understanding to the recently vacated complementarian position (as a conservative Christian who holds to egalitarianism, I really like the progress of my fellow conservatives).

The new theological doctrine has emerged in our time has proceeded from conservative complementarianism which has recently discovered that the Scriptures have taught complementarianism all along (silly us).

For conservatives in the modern age, complentarianism allows them to admit the equal worth of women and men while still maintaining separate but equal gender roles in the Church (though I have yet to hear what female role is afforded to women in the Church that men cannot hold). Of course, since moderate and liberal Christianity have come from the complementarian position, they know well the problems inherent in such a position.

The main criticism to which modern complementarians have had to respond is the idea that equal worth and equal substance can co-exist with subordinate positions. The very clever response by complementarians to this argument is the roles within the Godhead. The idea being that Father-Son have equal worth but the son is subordinate to the Father. I think this is a good reply to the criticism by egalitarians.

However, I believe that such an argument has lead to the theory which is quickly becoming doctrine that the roles within the Godhead are in fact not merely an analogy for the complementarian position but the basis!

Such an idea is based upon Genesis 1:27:

“So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

This is also on 1 Cor 11:3:

“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God.”

The traditional interpretation of Genesis 1:27 is that God created Man in His image thus Man in of itself is in the image of God and God created this Man in his image in two varieties: male and female. This traditional interpretation does not advocate that the differentiation in male and female reflects the being of God but that both male and female are created in the image of God.

The new interpretation of Genesis 1:27 argues that God created Man in His image and that the differentiation of male and female is a result of such a differentiation in the Godhead. The basic analogy would be that God as Father-Son is equated with Man as Male-Female. Such an idea apparently leaves out the Holy Spirit in the equation, which is odd because all thought God as Yahweh (presumably the Father) is in Genesis 1, references to the Son are absent (which is to be expected sense such an idea wasn’t even considered until the advent of Christ) but the Spirit of God is present (Gen 1:2) though certainly not recognizable in the Christian understanding.

Though this new interpretation is based on the desire to ground the new conservative view of gender roles in Scripture and in God, any further understanding of what these divine roles involve in relation to Man as Male-Female is completely absent from the discussion, aside from the general view that of subordination. Certainly, sexual characteristics are not considered because God is sexless. Thus, Father-Son can not relate to Male-Female in that the Father has male characteristics and the Son has female characteristics. Indeed, the only corresponding feature between God and Man is the coincidence of subordinate fellowship with a self-equal entity. Anything else is absent from the analogy.

There are a few problems with this interpretation of Genesis 1:27:

1) Such an interpretation is completely absent from the verse and passage of Genesis 1. It’s not there.

2) The idea of subordination is absent in this passage, either with God or within Man as male and female. Not there.

3) I myself would not mind such an interpretation because it strengthens my argument that God is eternally ONE person and not Three. Regardless, Trinitarian ideas are absent from Genesis 1.

4) Going to the other creation story of Genesis, this interpretation of Genesis 1:27 contradicts the J-writers contention that male and female were co-equal helpmeets (Gen 2:22ff.) until the fall of Man (Gen 3:16).

5) Such an interpretation of male and female forms is both completely absent from both the OT and NT and contradicts both the teachings of Jesus and Paul regarding gender relations.

6) Even if this interpretation of 1 Cor 11:3 were true, it is only relevant to married couples and has no relevancy to issues outside the family such as women pastors and the authority of women in the Church.

1 Cor 11:3 is the other key verse for modern complementarians. Their interpretation of this verse is that Paul is basing male “headship” and gender subordination on Man being created in the image of God and thus the female is subordinate to the male based upon their fundamental being as made in the image of God.

There are a few problems with this interpretation of 1 Cor 11:3:

1) The doctrine of “headship” as taught by Paul in Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians is NOT ABOUT LEADERSHIP. I cannot stress this enough. No where does Paul teach that “headship” is about “leadership.” Nowhere does Paul teach that “leadership” has to do with “headship”. This has been a perennial and general assumption without any or cultural Scriptural basis. With Paul “headship” is about sanctification. “Headship” is metaphor by which Paul describes the means by which God sanctifies Christ, the Church and the family. Read the appropriate Pauline passages concerning headship: 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Ephesians 5:21-32 and gender issues. Also, read these passages in light of 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 and Ephesians 5:26.

Christ is sanctified by God, the Church is sanctified by God through Christ, God sanctifies the family (wife and children) through the husband. HOWEVER, as 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 points out, if the husband is an unbeliever but the wife a believer, the believing wife is the means by which God sanctifies the husband and children. Therefore, although the general rule in terms of headship is the husband, by Gods’ grace, the wife can be “head” if the husband is unbelieving. Reason for yourself: who is the “head” of a family in a single parent household? Who is the “head” of the family if the father dies leaving the mother and two younger children?

2) This passage has nothing to do with the fellowship within the Godhead. Reread the verse.

“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God.”

Notice that the terms “Father” and “Son” are absent in this passage (cf. 1 Cor 1:3; 9; 8:6; 15:24, 28). Notice what term is used: “Christ”, the Messiah, the “anointed one,” who makes righteous. Again, “headship” is metaphor by which Paul describes the means by which God sanctifies Christ, the Church and the family. Christ is sanctified by God, the Church is sanctified by God through Christ, God sanctifies the family (wife and children) through the husband. Jesus Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit by God. Christians are a part of Christ’s body and we thus share in the gift of the Holy Spirit by being in Christ’s body which is anointed with the Holy Spirit by God. Similarly, in marriage the husband and wife come together to become one flesh (i.e., one person) and (in Christian families) this union sanctifies the children.

[Paul, Luke and John all repeatedly deal with this issue of the results of the corporate Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Sprit in their works.]

3) The idea that the subordination of the male is based upon Man’s correspondence as the image of God is completely absent if not contradicted. Paul himself says in verse 7, “For a man indeed ought not to cover [his] head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” Thus Paul is not saying that the “role” of the female is based upon her fellowship with the male in the image of God but because the male is made in the image of God and she is his glory.

4) Even if this interpretation of 1 Cor 11:3 were true, it is only relevant to married couples and has no relevancy to issues outside the family such as women pastors and the authority of women in the Church.

Therefore, while the analogy of Father-Son and Male-Female is a good one insofar as it presents the ideas that subordination of one doesn’t lessen his or her equal value, such an analogy is only an analogy and we should not base our theology of God’s being on such an idea. I say this because too many SBC leaders and seminary students are grasping at any straw they can find to legitimate their views of gender roles in the face of overwhelming Scriptural opposition.

Abandon this line of theorizing; it will only lead to more heresy and the second generation of such thinking will cause far too much theological, ecclesiastical, social and familiar damage.

Just accept Jesus, Paul, Luke, the P-writer and the J-writer at face value and believe in the egalitarian position of gender roles.

A Quick Thought on the Image of God

There is a presumption among far too many fundamentalist Christians to equate “Man made in the image of God” with the outward and physical characteristics of God, despite the fact that God is spirit and not material. Fundamentalists do so because they want to counter the findings of biological evolution that traces man’s biological ascendancy from brute beast to a thinking mammal (I myself find the ascendancy from brute mammal to mammal that has a personal relationship with God fascinating). Such an idea unfortunately borders upon that of Mormonism (and some other fundamentalist groups) that views God as having a physical body not unlike that of Adam. Nevertheless, if “Man made in the image of God” with were to be thought of in such physical terms, what would God then look like?

Young or old?
Black of white?
Male or female?
Tall or short?
Fat or thin?
Blonde or brunette?
Brown eyes or blue eyes?
Beard or clean shaven?

The classical philosophers (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) would by dialectical reasoning attempt to find out what the essence of Man is by reducing him or her down to its most common and universal denominator and then state this ideal as that which is what makes man in the image of God and thus, God. Such a Thomist approach to theology would send Barth into a tirade. I myself (like a good neo-orthodox thinker) would rather find out about Man from God and not God from Man.

But, again, if we did make such test on the condition that God is most like what man is most like … then God would be an Asian woman because there are more Asians than any other race and more women than men. Thus, an Asian woman.

[In case your wondering what it means for Man to be made in God’s image, it refers to Man’s ability to relate on a personal level. Thus, He created Man to be able to relate to God. My own personal theory is that the first animal that was able to relate to God on a personal level was the first human (i.e., Adam). I’ll probably have to wait until the resurrection to get an answer. Oh well.]

Man From Mud Thru Mammals: The Value of Man Amidst Evolutionary Theory

At those points in my week when I devote time to write my book concerning my experiences at seminary, I am occasionally struck by a new argument for a belief which I learned while at seminary.

Many believers who deny the reality of biological evolution as the method by which God creates various biological life, including men, often argue that if Man were in deed biologically descended from some non-human species this would somehow diminish the worth of Man and put into disparage the Christian belief that Man is made in the image of God.

However, this particular argument against evolution (which actually does not address the reality of the theory but only its perceived consequences) is not tenable with arguments of either Scripture or the experience and reason of confessing Christians.

1) The idea that a Man would be deemed worthless by brute origins is not an argument against evolution.

Those who hold to a less poetic view of the creation stories of Genesis 2 and 3 do not believe that Man is deemed worthless because he comes from dirt (Gen 2:7; 3:19). Yet, if they believe that Man has value even though his origins are from mud, then would man be of less value because he is from brute.

In Matthew 6:26, Jesus teaches that Man should not worry about life sustenance because God cares for the birds of the sky, so why shouldn’t he care for Man who is of greater value. Of course, Jesus refers to the greater value of Man, but he is also speaking of the value of animals. However, I have found no instance in the Bible where God shows any value to dirt. If, the anti-evolutionists were consistent in this particular argument against evolution they would make the case that Man has lesser value because he has come from dirt and not animals. Of course, Man does have value despite the fact that he comes from animals, that he comes from dust, and that he ultimately comes from nothing. The value of man is not lessened by his origins or by what he is made of. Man is given value by God and has that value because God says he has value.

2) Often the view is argued that if Man originated in some biologically different from than which he now exists, then this would prove that Man is not made in the image of God.

This is a troubling line of reasoning because it assumes the that Man is only “Man” because it conforms to a general Platonic view of what Man-ness means. By this I mean that it is assumed that anything that is less than what it generally means to be “Man” is somehow less than “Man”.

Such thinking dominated the worldview of men when it came to the value of women and people of other races. Females were said to have less value than males because males were closer to what constituted the “Man-ness”, i.e., “the image of God”. The same was said about Africans, Asians, Native Americans and even Caucasians. Such ideas have largely been eradicated within the Western world though it does continue in various non-Western cultures. Man is not less a Man if he or she is of any racial and sexual persuasions. All our considered Man.

However, such enlightened thinking is still prevalent among many of the liberals in the Western world who argue that fetuses are not Man and are thus without value simply do to the fact that they do not resemble “Man” in its generally accepted form.

I often wonder why they do not take a cue from Dr. Suess’ Horton Hear A Who: “A person is a person no matter how small.”

But such thinking is contrary to our normal experiences.

Is a man less of a Man because he or she has no legs?
Is a man less of a Man because he or she is a “little person”? (of the mini-Me variety)
Is a man less of a Man because he or she is 8 to 9 feet tall?
Is a man less of a Man because he or she has down syndrome?

Or to put it another more Scriptural way, are any of these examples considered to be less than in the image of God?
This is an important question as we deal with evolution, abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and cloning.

In terms of evolution, my view of what constitutes Man, I would categorize not just homo sapiens, but neanderthals, homo erectus and even homo habilis as constituting Man as recognized by God, i.e., “made in the image of God”.

In my view the first Man (Adam) was the first creature created by God who was able to have a personal relationship with God. I suspect that such a person was some form of early australopithecus or even an earlier creature. I imagine that (like always) God initiated contact and the creature responded in kind. I think this is what constituted the initial value of Man apart from the other mammals.

Of course, all of this is poetic imagination on my part, but it has made a good short story (for another work-in-progress apart from my book on my seminary experiences).

The Inheritors

There is only one basic theological problem that I have with Darwinian evolution and it is the one problem that evangelicals and fundamentalists never mention or with which they appear to ever have a problem. What is it?

The biological idea of “survival of the fittest” as coined by Herbert Spencer, which is better phrased as Darwin’s term of “natural selection” appears to be at odds with the Christian idea that “the meek shall inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5) which Jesus appropriated from Ps 37:11.

Now this idea of inheriting the earth or land is a diverse and complex cultural idea of the Ancient Near East. Many of the promises that God gave to Abraham and his descendents are based upon this idea of land inheritance (provided they honored the covenant, that is. If they didn’t honor the covenant they would be subject to the cherem (Mal. 4:6), which God did subject them to as the Apocalypse of John so records. God’s promises are often conditional. Most dispensationalists maintain that God always keeps His promises and therefore they attempt to find fulfillment of Israel’s inheriting the land within the millennial kingdom. But one of His promises is punishment for breaking the covenant. Also, God said He would destroy Nineveh in 40 days. However, Nineveh repented and God repented from destroying them. Did God break His promise? Of course not. And God did promise that if Israel did not repent they would face the cherem. Well?)

Of course, “natural selection” and “genetic drift” are far more complex factors than simple matters of biological aggression versus biological passivism. Our earliest known biological ancestors from the Cambrian explosion (between 542 and 530 million years ago) were both relatively small and defenseless when compared to those oceanic species which did not evolve into amphibious creatures. However, these earliest proto-human ancestors did have the uncanny ability to use their relatively small construction to hide in their environment and thus to allude extinction. Therefore, natural selection is not simply a matter of physiological strength and stamina.
William Golding as a good book called The Inheritors, which is about a group of passive Neanderthals which encounter and are destroyed by a group of hostile Homo Sapiens. Yes, the ironic title of the book is directed at the sayings of the Scripture. Whether or not Golding was attacking the Gospel I have no way of knowing. However, for those believers who hold to various forms of natural selection, Golding does raise a good point.

One of the odd, apparently conflicting and foolish, and even scandalous aspects of Christianity which is at the core and one of the foundations of its ethics is the strong focus on meekness, non-violence, humility, servanthood and peace. Our movement is founded on the Cross. The Cross is foolish and scandalous to mankind. The prior ethic of the Old Testament, the ethic of the world, and the laws of nature itself are “an eye for an eye”, dog-eat-dog world, the aggressive use of force, majority rule, competitive capitalism, the perils of the animal kingdom, and the food chain. Both nature, history provide overwhelming evidence that aggressive dominance is the supreme ethic of the universe. … And yet, the Creator of this universe, of this world, and of this natural ethic has broken into history and has spoken in the full revelation of His Son who comes to the rebellious humanity who were made in the image of the Creator, and says, “The Kingdom of God is here; it’s not going to be that way anymore.” And, thus, all of history, science and the political and military methods of this world are turned on their heads and somehow the meek do indeed inherit the earth.

It is unfortunate that so few believers have adopted these particular teachings of Christ (save Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther King and those like them). Just like the rest of humanity, they look around them and see the natural world and the political world expediently accomplishing their goals. They grow impatient with the steady progress of the kingdom and would rather see goals met by swift victory than by the individual-by-individual witness of believers to the Gospel message. Instead of sharing our faith, we prefer to codify our beliefs in the culture by laws and court rulings. We rather see a culture transformed in our lifetime than individuals transformed in the same time. We would rather see our political enemies punished and defeated than saved and renewed.

The disciples of Christ are still waiting for a political messiah: “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

It is a supreme irony that so many faithful believers who accept evolution reject the “survival of the fittest” ethics while so many other faithful believers who reject evolution accept the “survival of the fittest” ethic. Of course, these are very general categories but none the less reflect a very true reality.

Regardless of differences in methodology and ethics, we all believe that God is and will win and purge the Creation from sin. We do believe that God is continual creative control and that the meek will in fact inherit the earth.

However, as the 1st century Jews and Jewish Christians discovered when they settled on nationalistic and politico-military solutions:

“He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” (Prov 11:29)

Divine Creation

Nowhere? To me you might as well be saying that nowhere does science begin to support and give evidence for gravity.

And nowhere does the Bible teach that God did not use biological evolution to create the universe. Of course, the same can be said of gravity, photosynthesis, relativity, the second law of thermodynamics, cell-division, and a million other aspects of God’s creation. Simply because the Bible is silent on an issue it does not mean that the issue does not exist. Do the Bible writers explain the rules of Greek phonetics when want to tell a story? Must Hieronymus Bosch explain how he mixes the oil and how he paints on wood panels as well as create The Garden of Earthly Delights?

Nowhere does the Bible actually give any explanation of how God forms objects; that is not the Bible’s purpose. What is important is that “God formed Man”, all else is secondary with regards to creation. One Scripture writer states that “God formed him in his mother’s womb.” How God did so the writer doesn’t say. That it took a sperm and an egg, cell division and nine months of gestation is completely missing from his statement. Are we then to say, “No, God doesn’t create Man over nine months and by cell division because the Bible doesn’t say so; it simply says God forms man, therefore God forms man immediately.”?

Did God form Adam using any scientific principle by which all those after him are created? Did God use cell division? Did God use DNA? Did He create the skeleton first or the organs first? Did He start from the outside in or the inside out? Did He turn the dust into cells or DNA first and then construct that out of man or did He make a mud statue and then bring that to life? Was the statue wet or dry? When did man first have atoms and various subatomic particles? Did God use scientific laws for creating man or did he break all the known scientific laws of the already created universe to make man? Did God turn dust into a sperm and an egg and then allow the gestation process to do its work? At what point did the cells come alive: before or exactly at the point that man was granted conscious? If God took dust and created live cells that he then turned those live cells into a man does this contradict the Bible?

“God spoke to create all but man, and He personally formed man from the dust of the ground.” Well, what about everyone else since Adam? How can Jeremiah say that God formed him? He didn’t did he? No, a sperm from his dad and an egg from his mom formed him, not God. Is Jeremiah less than the image of God because he was not directly formed from dust as Adam? God did speak to create man; the Bible clearly says so. Everything that exists as creation was created by the Word of God, including man. Jesus Himself was created by the Word of God, that certainly doesn’t make Him less than Adam.

For as long as I have been discussing the issue of science and the Faith, I have always heard believers who disbelieve in evolution cite, as their authority, atheists. Why is this done? Why are atheists cited? Why not cite theistic evolutionists? I know why; it would defeat your argument.

Who cares what atheists and “secular” scientists think? They don’t believe in God, so why should any believer cite them as an authority about God?

Would I go to a person who only has a vague awareness of James Joyce, has never read Ulysses, does not like Joyce from the little he has heard, and then ask for his opinion on what the purpose of the "Circe" chapter is? No, I would go to someone who actually has read Ulysses and get his opinion. I wouldn’t go to a person who doesn’t know Greek and get his opinion on particular uses of the genitive? That a punk rocker or rapper doesn’t agree with or even understand baroque music does not therefore place their opinion of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in any high level of musical authority in my personal artistic pantheon. Furthermore, I wouldn’t go to someone who hasn’t studied biology to get their scientific opinion on evolution. Thus, I wouldn’t go to an atheist to get his opinion on evolution and God. Their ignorant of God. They don’t know. If one brings up relativity, the hydrologic cycle, quantum mechanics, and any other scientific fact and they will say it disproves the creation of God. Does it? No, and if an atheists say that one wouldn’t believe them. So why should we then believe them when they say evolution disproves God. Most of those atheists out there who do think that evolution disproves God aren’t even biologists themselves.

Why is it that so many people can believe in God and believe in evolution at the same time and not have a problem? Why do so many scientists and biologists not have a problem with these as mutually inclusive ideas?

Don’t worry. You could not have possibly known what point I was going to make because I did not tell you what my point was going to be. I’ve argued all this before. These are all inerrancy issues and science versus religion questions. These issues were settled by the Church in the latter half of the 18th century and the first half of the twentieth century. One might as well be arguing that Matthew and Luke didn’t use sources, Moses wrote every word of the Pentateuch, or the book of Daniel was written during the 6th century BCE. It’s all milk to me now. One might as well be singing “Zacchaeus was a wee little man” to me.

We must dig deeper. What does the evolution mean for Man in his relation with God? If the first Man was very biologically different from contemporary Man, what does that mean about Man being created in the likeness of God?

These million and billion year old models of the universe continuing to create itself over time are sublime. Man is continuing to be molded. The earth, through storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, and the natural erosion of water and gravity, is carefully being carved and by God from eternity. It’s like a man with his bonsai tree. It’s a man tending his garden. It’s the Creator creating and continuing to create and, therefore, still enjoying His creation.

He is continuing to create us as well. The parables of Jesus are wonderful in conveying this. All the agricultural metaphors as applied to humanity.

Really, how sublime is the creation!

How like God is evolution! How like God is the slow change towards perfection! He shapes the His universe. He molds it like a potter with water and dirt over time. Just as water shapes the earth (erosion and the hydrologic cycle) so our bodies are shaped (cell-division cycle) over time until we are not biologically the same being we were when we first started. It is astounding!

In the first creation story God is seen at a distance when creating. However, in the second creation story, God is anthropomorphic and walking in and amongst His creation. He plants a garden, He forms animals from out of the ground, He forms man from the dust of the ground like a kid making mud pies, like a potter at his clay.

And God continues to create. He is continually shaping the universe. The creative process continues, both geologically, biologically and spiritually. God continues to form His world through weathering. God continues to form biological man through evolution. God continues to form spiritual man through sanctification. The creation goes on. God continues to create and God continues to be active in the forming of His world.

How could He not be?

To say that evolution or weathering or the hydrologic cycle is not evidence of God’s creative activity is nonsensical. Quite the opposite! Evolution et al is proof of God’s creative activity. That it resembles many other means of His creative process should be of no surprise to any of us.

To say that God should not have created by evolution ... well, it’s one think to tell Mozart he should not have first created Don Giovanni with the actors alternating between spoken recitatives and sung arias and then preferring the latter secco-recitatives composed by Mozart in place of the spoken text, but to tell God He shouldn’t use evolution to create because it is a method beneath His dignity as creator? Nonsense! It is not a mediocre method of creativity on the part of God; it is a method that has a quality of transcendental greatness whispers to our spirits of the majesty and glory that is God. All other animal life in the universe walks around in a condition of utter indifference to the splendor that surrounds them. But we who are made in the image of our creator can gaze up and around at it all and (like the psalmists and the author of the book of Job) appreciate with a sliver of transcendental finity that which is reflected as the creative process.

To somehow say that God did not or could not employ the method of evolution in his creative process is tantamount to saying that God did not create at all.

“See that perfectly formed pocket watch? Was it random chance that it appeared as a perfectly functioning watch? See that painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Did it randomly appear as such out of then air? Is Don Quixote the result of a million monkeys typing?”

Frank - “See that elderly man over there with all the wrinkles and laugh lines under the eyes? How much would you wager that God created him as an old man?”

Ernest - “Nonsense! He shows all the signs of the aging process. He started off one way and only changed into that person over time.”

Frank - “Are you saying that God could not create a man who is already old?”

Ernest – “Of course God could do that, but it is a matter of whether God did do that. As we look at His other work it is a better wager to suggest that God created that man over time.”

Frank – “So if God said that He Himself created this man as an elderly man –“

Ernest – “Well, that’s different. Then God created that man as elderly from the get go.”

Frank – “But God just says that He created that man.”

Ernest – “Which leaves me to maintain that God created him the way He creates everyone else.”

And to somehow say that evolution would mean a less than sublime sense of creation … well, it’s like that slight moment of embarrassment when brilliant poet T.S. Eliot referred to Hamlet as an artistic failure. A reference to which literary critic Harold Bloom responded, “Then show me an artistic success!”

God Does Not Call The Rain To Fall

I think we must now admit that God does not call the rain to fall. I do not think that we can tenably state that God causes the rain to fall; such is scientifically impossible.

See the hydrologic cycle

As we can see from the above diagram representing the scientific research of hundreds of years of inquiry, the cause of rain is completely removed from the activities of God.

Now we do have Scriptural references that appear to suggest that God makes rain:

Gen 2:5; 7:4; Ex 9:18; Lev 26:4; Deut 11:14; 1Sa 12:17; Job 5:10; Ps 68:9; Jer 5:24; Joe 2:23; Amo 4:7; Mat 5:45; Act 14:17

Therefore, I suggest that we now take these passages as figurative and not literal. Because, as science has so overwhelming proven, rain has absolutely nothing to do with God.

Who Adam and Eve Were

I was recently asked the following question that I answered:

"You being a Darwinian evolutionist, and having read some of your posts on the subject, I was wondering what your current opinion is of who exactly who you think Adam and Eve were, the nature of the Garden of Eden ...and your take on the nature of the Great Flood."

It seems logical to me that there was a first man, and I assume that this must be a point of agreement between evolutionists and “creationists” (i.e., those conservative Christian believers (usually fundamentalists) who believe that the Genesis 1-3 story is a literal and historical record (not to mention scientific) and believe that macro biological evolution is incompatible with the revealed teachings of Scripture.).

We can all admit that Man currently exists. We can also all admit that there was a time when Man did not exist. Therefore, if Man does exist and there was a time when Man did not exists, I must presume that there was a First Man. From a quasi-historical sense then, this first identified man would be “Adam”. He is the first Adam as Christ is the Second Adam.

But how do I reconcile this belief in the first Adam and my belief in the theory of evolution?

I would suggest that for millions of years life existed on Earth. All of this life was created by God but God did not create this life in the image of Himself. For this reason, because this life was not created in God’s image, this life created by God could not relate to God (a personal being) in a personal way. But God wanted to relate to in a personal way to a personal creature. Life began from the smallest single-celled organism and evolved over millions of year from small worms, to fish, to lizards, to mammals, to ape like creatures – all of which were created by God and non of which were able to relate to Him on a personal level.

I suggest that, at some point, one of these non-personal creatures produced the first creature that could relate to God in a personal way. This creature was probably some early form of “primate” that probably looked more like an “ape” than what we humans look like today. He probably had a small brain and very little intelligence, but this creature could relate to God on a personal level and, in this way, this creature was made in the “image of God.”

So why do I not simply identify the first man with the “Adam of the Scriptures”? The reason for this is that the Genesis 2-3 chapter is not focused on an individual but a corporate personality. The “Adam” of Genesis 2-3 is not a single individual but he is ALL men and every man (and woman) in this scenario in which Man sins and falls from the image of God. Each person (male and female) is Adam and not just the first man but it does include him. It even includes the last man … which is an interesting thought; who will be the last man? Anyway, this is not a foreign concept to Scripture at all.

Look at the “Son of Man” in Daniel 7:13. Before his entrance, four beasts presented (7:2-8, 15-17, 19-25). From the text it is obvious that these 4 beasts do not represent 4 persons but 4 kingdoms. They are symbolic and non-historical but it does represent 4 historical situations. After the beasts, last comes the “Son of Man”. The “Son of Man” is symbolic and non-historical. The “Son of Man” represents the a kingdom and not a person (7:18, 27). “He” represents the holy people of God.

Now when Jesus came along, He took the symbolic “Son of Man” figure and applied it to Himself. Christ is a corporate being in whom all believers exist (must exist) to be justified by God.

(In college I talked with many people who denied Christ’s deity. They always said, “Well, Jesus never said he was God.” To which I responded: “You’re right, He never said He was God, because He was not just God; He was God-Man.” Or I might respond: “He called himself the ‘Son of Man.’ That’s a much more interesting self-designation.”) See A Quick Confession of Christ.

In Romans 5 (and elsewhere), Paul compares and contrast Christ as corporate with Adam as corporate. The usual reply is that “Christ is both individual and corporate, therefore, Adam must be individual and corporate.” But that is not a logical corollary of Paul’s argument and is not point made in the text.

This is certainly not the point made in Genesis 2-3.

There are 3 “Adams” in Genesis.

There is the “Adam” of Genesis 1 as the collective Man, made in the image of God, being both male and female (P-source).

There is the “Adam” of Genesis 2-3 as collective Man (falls as group), individual Man (falls as individual) and Man as male (‘ish) that stands in relation to Man as female (‘isha) (J-source).

Then there is the “Adam” of Genesis 4 who is probably the only explicitly individual “Adam” in the book. He is the wife of Eve and the father of Cain, Abel and Seth. And he is not mentioned much. Eve actually has a more prominent role in the rest of the narrative.

This is Scripture: it is God-breathed, inerrant, infallible and revealed. From it we get the Word of God. But the question for me is not that the Scripture is inerrant; I believe it is! For me the question is how we interpret this revelation.

We are confronted with several questions in these passages?

We do we have TWO creation stories in TWO different styles each with a different chronology of events (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2)?

Who was Cain afraid of when he told God that people on the earth would try to kill him? The traditional view was that there were only 3 people living: Adam, Eve and Cain.

Where did Cain’s wife come from?

Why is there NO evidence of a world wide flood? If we believe that all the different types of animals that exist today were carried on the ark how do we reconcile that they could not all fit on the ark? Where did all the fresh water fish go? The insects? Eight people could not have managed the duties of what it would have taken to care for thousands of animals for over a year. If there was a flood then the earth would have a clay sediment all over the earth, but there isn’t one. Now I believe in miracles but the logistics are such that God would have had to have erased all evidence of those miracles. Why would He do that? And even if He did, then science won’t be able to prove it because God removed all evidence that science must need to verify it.

Again, I believe the Bible is inerrant and I am not questioning the Bible. Rather, I am questioning the traditional interpretation of the Bible on these points. The Bible is not wrong but maybe we have been wrong in how we interpret it.

See also:

Evangelical Evolutionism

The Historicity of Christ

Exegesis of Genesis 3


I hope that helps.

Evolution, the Gospel, and the Baptist Press

Recently I have been tackling the issue of Evolution and Fundamentalistic Christianity. Actually, I have been wrestling with this issue for years now. Up until recently my focus has been on the belief that evolution and conservative Christianity are incompatible subjects. Since I believe that this is not the case I have sought to change the conservative Christian mindset on this subject. While I am in no way desiring that people should hold to evolution as I do, I do desire that conservative Christians at least allow other Christians to hold the theory of evolution without referring to them as liberal, errantists, or , even worse, unbelievers. This has been my goal.

However, two other aspects of this issue have gained my focus:

First, I am amazed that so many of our conservative leaders and scholars devote so much time to this issue. With all the problems in this world and in this country, it somewhat amazes me that people can spend so much time on this subject. Then again, what am I doing?

Perusing the various conservative leaders’ work on this subject, many of them see evolution as the source (or, at least, excuse) for all of modern life’s problems. Such is not the case but that is what many appear to believe publicly.

However, among the SBC leaders there have been two reasons given that we all should dislike about evolution. The first reason was given during the early days of the fundamentalist movement. Evolution was called a lie because it reduced man’s importance to the level of animal and denied he was made in the image of God. Such was not the case and this argument dropped by the wayside as the old fundamentalists did. However, the resurgence of fundamentalists into the SBC leadership under the dubious issue of biblical inerrancy precipitated a “revival” of the fundamentalist attack on evolution. This time the theory that had gained wide acceptance by the overwhelming majority of believers (including the majority of conservative believers) was being attacked on the basis of being contrary to the Bible, therefore, all who believed in evolution believed the Bible to be erring. Such was not the case but there you are. Now we are seeing a barrage of fundamentalist books and news stories articulating to the public and all the other Bible-believing Christians that evolution is contrary to the revealed Scriptures of the Creator.

The second aspect of this issue that has amazed me is one that has only recently come upon me.

Whenever I discuss this issue with other seminarians who are surprised at my belief in evolution and Biblical inerrancy, they almost always ask how I can agree with a theory that argues that man is not created in God’s image. I usually answer that I do not believe that the theory of evolution does contradict the revealed truth that humans are made in God’s image.

Yes, reasons Christians give for being against evolution are many: inerrancy, “miracle” creation, image of God … okay, the reasons are three. But there is one reason to be against evolution that I never hear from conservative Christians. Yes, I do have one problem with the theory of evolution that it is currently espoused.

In college, I read a book by William Golding called The Inheritors.

In this book, eight Neanderthals encounter another race of beings like themselves, yet strangely different. This new race, Homo sapiens, fascinating in their skills and sophistication, terrifying in their cruelty, sense of guilt, and incipient corruption, spell doom for the more gentle folk whose world they will inherit.

Now the subtle yet subversive point of this book is its title derived from the Bible, Matthew 5:5; this is the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.’

Yes, there is a real problem with the current theory of evolution that argues for “the survival of the fittest”. Now I happen to believe that there is a way around this problem but there is still an idea in our world that the strong inherit the earth. Now I do not necessarily blame Darwin for this belief. The history of humanity (and its pre-history) suggests that this world is run by the aggressive use of force. Darwinism did not event “survival of the fittest”; it merely found a naturalistic basis for it.

Yet, as the Sermon on the Mount illustrates, the kingdom of heaven is not of this world and is based on laws and rules and commandments at antithesis to the rules of this world. The kingdom is based on peace, meekness, patience, joy, love, poverty and such a kingdom comes at a snails pace but lasts for eternity. This world is based on war, brute force, impatience, misery, hate, wealth and such a world comes quick but lasts only a moment. The kingdom of God is totally at odds with this world and this is the good news. The Kingdom of Heaven has come and is coming and was inaugurated by the coming of its king, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ-figure, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Incarnated God-Man, and the kingdom will find its perfection when Jesus returns. The Kingdom of God IS the Gospel. And the fact that the kingdom of heaven was based on meekness and the like was foolishness to the Greek mind and a stumbling block to the Jews. Yet there it is.

And it is still foolishness to this world and much of the Church. It is amazing, ironic and sad that the most famous use of the rules of the Kingdom of God were applied by the Hindus and Muslims of India under Gandhi.

The most famous American example was by Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Jr.

Unfortunately, King appears to have been the last prominent liberal Christian to use the kingdom method. From the 19th century onward (and particularly today), the liberal wing of the American Church is more interested in pushing forward their agenda and the kingdom by means at odds with the kingdom. Very ironic.

And, unfortunately, much of the conservative wing of the American Church has never taken an interest using the kingdom methods. Each time the conservative churches have moved toward the kingdom of God, the fundamentalist wing has taken over and pulled them back. It is interesting that the conservative resurgence leaders used the most worldly of methods to get their way and now are trying, like the liberal churches, to push their vision of the kingdom upon the American culture. And it is failing as well.

Both groups suffer from impatience and the unwillingness to let the “foolish” methods of the kingdom bring the kingdom to this world. Unfortunately, the kingdom can only come by means of the kingdom. All other methods will fail.

Watching the fundamentalist leadership’s efforts of using brute force and overwhelming power to effect change for the kingdom of God is both sad and disheartening. It is painful to see people who are certainly believers and certainly members of the kingdom of God use the most un-gospel-like methods to proclaim the gospel … if, in fact, they do know what the gospel is.

So it does not surprise me at all that most conservatives do not see “survival of the fittest” as a problem with evolution. Most conservatives don’t see “survival of the fittest” as a problem with the gospel! The last 40 years of Southern Baptist History seems to suggest as much.

All of this is to say that I wanted to know how many articles in the chief Southern Baptist Convention news and propaganda outlet, the Baptist Press, mentions the subject of “evolution.” I was under the impression that they mention the subject a lot. It appears that at least once a week some article out of Southern Seminary will be about the evils of evolution. So I researched the past five years of the Baptist Press and found that they only mention evolution in Evolution – 250 articles. So, yeah, about once a week.

...

Then I thought … hmm, how many articles has the Baptist Press mentioned other subjects in the past five years.

For example:

How many articles mention the “gospel”? 4269

How many articles mention Jesus? 6339

How many articles mention Faith? 6008

How many articles mention God? 10851

How many articles mention the Bible? 5215

How many articles mention the Kingdom? 1699

How many articles mention Salvation? 1598

How many articles mention Grace? 1546

How many articles mention Sin? 1264

How many articles mention Evil? 766



So that’s all interesting, but ...


How many articles mention Abortion? 1232

How many articles mention Homosexuality? 885

How many articles mention Poverty? 370

How many articles mention the Supreme Court? 1352

How many articles mention Judge? 1148

How many articles mention the Courts in general - 2220



Interesting where our priorities are located, but …


How many articles mention Republicans? 745

How many articles mention Democrats? 502



Okay, but ...


How many articles mention the Resurgence? 217

How many articles mention Liberal? 791

How many articles mention Conservative? 1386

How many articles mention Moderate? 341




But we are a Christian group standing on the shoulders of giants, so ...



How many articles mention Luther? 223

How many articles mention Calvin? 129

How many articles mention Barth? 8

How many articles mention Augustine? 50

How many articles mention Kierkegaard? 2

How many articles mention Niebuhr? 6

How many articles mention Darwin? 76



Okay, let’s delve a bit deeper ...


How many articles mention Dr. Al Mohler? 709

How many articles mention Dr. XXXXXX? 678

How many articles mention Dr. XXXXXX? 38

How many articles mention Judge Paul Pressler? 61

How many articles mention Bobby Welch? 330

How many articles mention Rick Warren? 384

How many articles mention John Piper? 72



I won’t interpret this data; you can do that on your own. I am just relieved that evolution is not as big an issue as I feared. That’s good news.