James Orr's Endorsement of Theistic Evolution
Gavin Basil McGrath*
34 Mill Dr,
North Rocks,
N.S.W., 2151
Australia
From: Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 51.2 (June 1999): 114-121.
James Orr1 is a well-known and respected, religiously conservative Protestant who believed God accomplished the creation via theistic evolution. The purpose of this article is to use James Orr's writtings to highlight the biblical elements of Genesis 1-3 that theististic evolutionists must hold to if their model of creation is to stay within the boundaries of orthodoxy on such matters as the Trinity, soteriology, the soul, or miracles.
James Orr—An Awesome Defender of the Faith
Within conservative Protestantism, the Scotsman James Orr (1844–1913) is one of the most important apologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He wrote two articles on Genesis and science in The Fundamentals (1910–1915, final edition, 1917). In 1893 Orr specifically rejected the suggestion of Henry Calderwood, a prominent United Presbyterian layman, that a human being's mind, but not body, required God's creative power. For Orr, God guided the evolution of both. He defined "theistic evolutionists" as those evolutionists who "held that the development of an organism could not be explained without the assumptions of intelligence and purpose," and looked with favor on the work of such theistic evolutionists as St. George Mivart and Alfred Wallace. He noted that "Mr. Wallace holds that there are provable breaks in the chain of evolution, and that man, in particular, has a distinct origin."
In The Fundamentals, Orr rejected Darwin's theory of evolution in favor of theistic evolution in which "evolution" was just "a new name for `creation'," and said "man's origin can only be explained through an exercise of direct creative activity, whatever subordinate factors evolution may have contributed." He recognized that the "revelations of geology" supported the "gradual formation of the earth," and accordingly understood the "six days" of Gen. 1 to represent "vast cosmic periods."2
I Believe in Adam and Eve
Orr adhered to what Robert C. Newman and others call "Adam theistic evolution" (as opposed to "No-Adam theistic evolution"). He recognized the importance of maintaining that no true human beings have ever existed other than those who are generated from Adam, and that Adam was given a sinless human nature and conditional immortality, which he lost due to the Fall. Thus in The Fundamentals, Orr said that "man" came "from his Creator's hand in as morally pure a state, and as capable of sinless development, as Genesis and Paul affirm"; that "the Fall...is not a myth, but...an actual moral catastrophe in the beginning of our race, which brought death into the world and all our woe," for if "man had not sinned, he would never have died."
In other writings, Orr also commented on the importance of Adam and the Fall to Christian theology. For example, in The Bible Under Trial, he said:
...I take it be the plain teaching of Scripture, that man, made in God's image, was the last of the Creator's works (Gen. 1:26, 27), and that the whole race of human beings has sprung from "Adam," the first man created (Gen. 3:20).
Orr rejected the "Darwinian theory" and natural selection in favor of an evolutionary theory with "sudden changes" and "abrupt mutations," saying that this then allows "[r]oom...for a doctrine of sin—both individual and racial..." In God's Image in Man & its Defacement, Orr maintained that God supernaturally guided the evolutionary process leading to humanity. Referring to a person's "soul" that "survives the body" and the "racial consequence" of sin, he said:
A view of sin and of the moral state of the world requires for its basis a different account of the origin of man and his primeval constitution from that which ordinary evolution theories yield.
In The Christian View of God & the World, Orr said that the Darwinian idea that "sin is a necessary law of human development" is contrary to the biblical teaching about "the sinless nature of Christ." He rejected the Darwinian picture of humanity being in an "originally savage state," and said that the "connection of sin and death" requires that humans must have had original immortality, although he did not consider this so for the animals. He says of Gen. 3: "The truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the fall of man from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian view." This meant Orr was opposed to any Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian views of Gen. 3 that simply regard Adam and Eve as representational types with the same fallen sinful natures and bodily mortality as we fallen humans.3 In his understanding of Gen. 1–3, Orr was thus a religious conservative who believed in creation miracles in the evolutionary process, and was orthodox with respect to Adam, the Fall, and original sin.
Some of Orr's Contemporaries
I shall now consider Orr in the context of three prominent Protestant contemporaries: evangelist and educator Bob Jones, Sr. (1883–1968), an anti- evolutionist follower of Scofield's Gap Theory and founder of a large fundamentalist university; theologian Benjamin Warfield (1851–1921), who considered evolution as a valid theory but was noncommittal on its correctness; and theologian Augustus Strong (1836–1921), a theistic evolutionist.
Jones was a Methodist minister who resigned from Methodism because of the rising influence of religious liberalism in that denomination. In harmony with orthodoxy, he believed in humanity's common descent from Adam, the creation of humans in a state of original righteousness, the sinful nature and mortality of humans due to a historical fall by Adam, the Apostles' Creed, Jesus our only Mediator, the Lord's Prayer, the blood atonement, justification by faith, the new birth, the authority of the Bible, patriarchy in the home and church, and the Ten Commandments.
Jones' commitment to uphold truth against a spirit of compromise is very commendable, but his theology was not without error. For example, he did not always teach forgiveness of sins in harmony with the Bible. His belief in mental "telepathy" was highly superstitious, and his favorable attitude toward the idolatrous syncretism of Freemasonry was, at best, the misguided view of a deceived man. Contrary to Rom. 5:12–14, Jones sided with Pelagians, Arminians, and the New School in subverting the biblical teaching of original guilt. He claimed that "God doesn't send you to hell for what Adam did," and so like Coelestius, Jones claimed "a little baby" who "died...would...go on to heaven" because "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23) and the baby "didn't commit a sin." He failed to recognize the defect in his own logic, i.e., since "the wages of sin is death," then infants, if they really were sinless, could never die.
Jones also failed to recognize the distinction between the spiritual Fatherhood of God, belonging only to Christians (John 8:41–44), and the universal Fatherhood of God as Creator, belonging to all humans. In Luke and Acts, we are told that all humans are God's "offspring," since we come down "from one" man (Acts 17:26, 28, 29, NASB). As "Adam...was the son of God" (Luke 3:38), it follows that "Adam" must be that "one man." It also follows that all sons of Adam are thus sons of God. But Jones denied the universal Fatherhood of God. Thus he devalued the racial unity of Adam's race that underpins both the universal Fatherhood of God and also original guilt.
By contrast, Orr as a Presbyterian believed in the Westminster Confession, which recognizes the imputation of Adam's primal sin and thus original guilt (on a Federalist model), and maintains election rather than the universalist salvation of infants. Therefore, theistic evolutionist Orr was more theologically sound on matters about humans and sin relating to Gen. 1–3 than was anti-evolutionist Bob Jones, Sr.4
Like Orr, B. B. Warfield was a Presbyterian and contributed to The Fundamentals. He upheld Christ's sinless human nature and said that the "fundamental" element in "the Biblical doctrine of the origin of man is that he owes his being to a creative act of God." Warfield regarded "the method of the divine procedure" as a "subsidiary question," and while remaining noncommittal on what this "divine procedure" was, considered that evolution was a valid theory since "`evolution' cannot act as a substitute for creation, but at best can only supply a theory of the method of the divine providence." Warfield recognized the "absolute restriction of the human race within the descendants of...[a] single pair," Adam and Eve, and considered that the "prevalence of the evolutionary hypothesis has removed all motive for denying a common origin to the human race." He said:
The fact of racial sin is basal to the whole Pauline system (Rom. 5:12ff; 1 Cor. 15:21f)...It is only because all men were in Adam as their first head that, all men share in Adam's sin...and...punishment... It is because the race is one and its need one, Jew and Gentile are alike under sin, that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in the matter of salvation either...Jesus Christ therefore, as the last Adam, is the Saviour...of the world...The unity of the human race is therefore made in Scripture not merely the basis of a demand that we shall all recognize the dignity of humanity in all its representatives...since all bear alike the image of God... ; but the basis also of the entire scheme of...salvation...[I]n the hands of the great Protestant leaders of the sixteenth century, and of their successors...of the seventeenth century, the threefold doctrine of imputation—of Adam's sin to his posterity, of the sins of His people to the Redeemer, and of the righteousness of Christ to His people—at last came to its rights, as the core of the three constitutive doctrines of Christianity—the sinfulness of the human race, the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and justification by faith...
Understandably, Warfield considered Orr's evolutionary model to be theologically orthodox.5
A. H. Strong was a Baptist with some unorthodox opinions. But this theistic evolutionist upheld such fundamentals of the faith as creation miracles—regarding with favor divine intervention models, such as those of A. R. Wallace and St. G. Mivart. He recognized humanity's common descent from Adam and Eve, the creation of humans in a state of original righteousness, humanity's fall in Adam, a human being's possession of a soul, and Christ's sinless human nature.6 The points isolated by Strong as fundamentals that needed to be retained in any model of evolutionary creation are thus strikingly similar to those isolated by Orr.
Intersections with Roman Catholic Theology
The Protestant Reformers recognized that the creedal doctrine of the 380 Nicene Fathers and 150 Constantinoplean Fathers, the Trinitarian doctrine, and the anti-Pelagian doctrine in the four General Councils of the Church Fathers' Era (post New Testament to 451), namely, Nicea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), was biblically sound. These areas of agreement with the Roman Church (and Antiochian Church7) relate to recognizing God as Creator (Nicene Creed8), original sin and human death resulting from Adam's sin at the Fall (Ephesus), Christ having a sinless human nature like Adam before the Fall (Chalcedon), and miracles (for example, the virgin birth or Christ's resurrection in the Nicene Creed)—relevant to the issue of creation miracles, for example, Adam's soul (Gen. 2:7). Unlike the Apollinarian heresy, which denied Christ's full humanity by claiming that in Christ the Logos took the place of a human soul or rational soul (Constantinople and Chalcedon), the Council of Chalcedon (like the Athanasian Creed endorsed by the Protestant Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church) says that since Christ was a "man" he had "a rational soul and body." That is, orthodoxy requires the recognition that (unlike other earth life forms) Adamites have souls.9
The Roman Catholic Church has been sympathetic to a certain type of theistic evolution. For example, in 1876 Pope Pius IX awarded St. George Mivart a doctorate for his work in science and religion. In Humani Generis (1950), Pope Pius XII (like the Protestant Benjamin Warfield, discussed above) said "evolution" is a valid theory for "the origin of the human body," although he was noncommittal about whether it, or some other theory, is the correct one. However, he required that Roman Catholics be soul creationists. He said no diversity of opinion could exist concerning monogeny and polygeny since Roman Catholics should not believe that true humans existed after Adam who were not generated from him "since it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with...the [Roman] Church's [teaching]...with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and...through generation is passed on to all..."
Orr looked with favor on the contribution made by Roman Catholic theistic evolutionists, such as Mivart. With respect to the creation and the Fall, there are clearly points of intersecting agreement between the Roman Catholic theistic evolutionists who adhere to Humani Generis, and the Protestant theistic evolutionists, such as Orr, who recognize the importance of creation miracles, monogeny, Adam and the Fall, original sin, and the second Adam as "perfect man" (Athanasian Creed) having a sinless human nature.10
Upholding Orthodoxy
Biblical teaching about the Trinity and plan of salvation cannot be reasonably maintained apart from a historical fall by Adam. Semi-Pelagian models that do not regard Gen. 2–3 as depicting a historical fall from original righteousness and immortality by humanity's progenitor, Adam, but do recognize humanity's depravity and need for Christ's saving power, fail to satisfactorily deal with the origin of humanity's sinful nature, human mortality, the limitation of salvation to Adam's race, the second Adam's human nature, and the second Eve's human nature after glorification. They make God responsible for creating sinful humans and, thus, the author of sin and human death; whereas the Bible says Adam is responsible and Christ died for Adam's guilty race (Rom. 1:16, 17, NASB; Rom. 5–8; 1 Cor. 12:13, NASB; 15:22, 45, 49).11 Christ's sinless human nature means that as the second Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), he overcame where the first Adam failed. But if the first Adam had a sinful nature, then Christ has proven nothing and did not die for humanity's sins. For if Adam lacked original righteousness, then the sinless Christ (Heb. 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22) was not truly human and so not the second Adam.
Understandably then, the four General Councils of the Church Fathers' Era dealt with both the Trinity and Pelagianism. For example, Coelestius's Pelagian claims that "Adam was created mortal, and he would have died, whether he sinned or not" or "Adam's sin injured himself alone, not the human race"; since these issues are indissolubly intertwined with Christological teaching about Christ's sinless human nature and his place in the plan of salvation. Thus, Athanasius (c. 296–373), Basil (c. 329–379), and Augustine (354–430) linked Christology and soteriology. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–389) declared: "What" Christ "did not assume he did not heal" (Epistle 101). Furthermore, heaven is only the temporary abode for the souls of the departed faithful (2 Cor. 5:1–11; Phil. 1:20–24), since at the Second Coming, Christ returns with the souls of the saints, who together with believers alive on earth, then experience the resurrection of the body (1 Thess. 3:13; 4:13–18). This future freedom from sin and death (Rom. 8) is described in Scripture as a restoration of Eden where humans again have access to the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:2,14). But a second Eden, where humans are sinless and immortal, requires a first Eden where humans lost this. If the second Adam is "without blemish and...spot" (1 Peter 1:19), then the first Adam must also have possessed righteousness originally. Similarly, if the second Eve, the Church, is to be presented to her husband, the second Adam, "not having spot or...blemish" (Eph. 5:27–32, RV & ASV; cf. Rom. 16:20 parallel to Gen. 3:15; 2 Cor. 11:2,3), but after glorification possessing "righteousness" (Rev. 19:7,8), then the first Eve must also have possessed such "righteousness" originally.
In formulating models of the creation, evolutionists, such as John Polkinghorne and Howard Van Till, seem to think that as long as their model recognizes God as the Creator, they have met any necessary theological requirements of the Christian faith. Certainly they have met one important first step. But by denying the possibility of creation miracles, such models are religiously liberal. By not affirming God's intervention in the evolutionary process to create Adam with a soul as the first human from whom all other humans are generated (Gen. 2:7,18–24; 3:20; Luke 3:38; Acts 17:26, NASB; 1 Cor. 15:45, 49) and with his wife in a state of original righteousness (Gen. 1:26; 2:25; 3:7–11; Eph. 4:23, 24, NASB; Col. 3:9, 10, NASB) with conditional immortality (Gen. 2:9, 16, 17; 3:19, 21–24; 1 Cor. 15:22), such models fail to uphold the biblical teaching of humanity and original sin (Gen. 3; 8:21; Rom. 5–8; Eph. 2:3), and are either Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian. Wilfully unrepentant persons, who support "heresies ¼ shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:20, 21b, AV & RV); for "heresies" are "destructive" (RV) or "damnable" (AV) to those who accept them, and those who teach them are also brought to "destruction" (RV) or "damnation" (AV) (2 Peter 2:1–3, AV & RV). These broad parameters, however, still leave a good deal of room for differences among the orthodox on Gen. 1–3.
Louis Berkhof criticized "Denney, Gore, and Orr" for "accept[ing], though with reservation, the evolutionary account of the origin of man," and said that while their view "leaves room for the doctrine of the fall in some senses of the word," it was nevertheless:
significant that they all conceive of the fall as a mythical or allegorical representation of an ethical experience or of some actual moral catastrophe at the beginning of history which resulted in suffering and death. This means that they do not accept the narrative of the fall as a real historical account of what occurred in the garden of Eden.
With respect to the Fall, Orr said (emphasis mine):
I do not enter into the question of how we are to interpret the third chapter of Genesis—whether as history or allegory or myth, or most probably of all, as old tradition clothed in oriental allegorical dress,—but the truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the fall of man from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian view.
I reject any possibility of the genre in Gen. 2 and 3 being "allegory," "myth," or an "old tradition clothed in oriental dress" (and in The Fundamentals Orr rejected any possibility that the event of the Fall itself, as opposed to the writing style of Gen. 3, was "myth"). I consider our first parents were tempted by Satan, who literally demon-possessed a serpent and spoke through that snake (cf. Num. 22:28; Luke 8:30–33; Rev. 12:9); Adam fell by literally eating the forbidden fruit that was hanging on a literal Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in a literal Garden of Eden; and Adam and Eve were thereafter barred access to a literal Tree of Life. But I do not consider Orr's view on the genre of Gen. 2 and 3 puts him outside the bounds of orthodoxy, since he maintains a real historical fall by Adam as the progenitor of the human race, even though he thinks that this historical fall was "probably" told in an "allegorical" manner. That is, on Orr's view, we do not know what Adam and Eve actually did in their rebellion against God. We only know Eve was deceived by Satan and sinned. Then she tempted Adam, who sinned and was ultimately responsible. Thus humanity fell from original righteousness and immortality. Orr's understanding of the Gen. 3 genre is not entirely dissimilar to Berkhof's view that "the tree of life must be understood sacramentally."12
I regard Berkhof's anti-evolution reference to Orr as misleading and unfair. He fails to state that unlike Orr, who was orthodox, it is inconceivable that "false teachers," such as Denney, Gore, or Tennant who brought in "damnable heresies" (2 Peter 2:1–3), would have been asked to contribute some article(s) on Gen. 1–3 in The Fundamentals. Berkhof associates Orr with "Denney" and "Gore." But Denney was clearly unorthodox, since he was indifferent to whether one considered Adam and Eve were created in a state of original righteousness; whereas Orr said, "the fall of man from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian view." Yet Berkhof does not make this distinction. Likewise, Gore was unorthodox since he said that Gen. 3 was "not a history of two individuals, Adam and Eve, but an `allegory' of mankind as a whole or of every man." This heresy embraces the Pelagian teachings of Coelestius condemned by the Council of Ephesus, one of which was, It is not through the death or the fall of Adam that the whole human race dies. The views of Gore, a liberal Puseyite Anglican Bishop, are also condemned in Art. 9 of his own Anglican church's 39 Articles:
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is ingenedered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil.
Orr was orthodox on this point, yet once again Berkhof does not note this difference. Berkhof follows his reference to Orr and others with a dissertation on the evolutionist Tennant, without mentioning the debates that occurred between Orr and Tennant in which it was very clear that Orr was orthodox on issues of Adam and the Fall, whereas Tennant embraced elements of Pelagianism and was clearly unorthodox. Orr specifically rejected Tennant's Pelagian theory on the origin of sin referred to by Berkhof, that as humans evolved they acquired certain moral impulses, and thus gradually became ethical beings. (In more recent times, Polkinghorne agrees with Tennant's basic theory on the origin of sin.) Yet again, Berkhof does not refer to this as a point of difference with Orr.13
Conclusion
Miracles and their importance to Gen. 1–3, are fundamentals of the faith with regard to the Trinity and soteriology. Examples are: the creation of human beings with a soul (Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 12:7); original righteousness (Eccl. 7:29, RV & ASV); humanity's subsequent demise due to a historical Fall by the human race's progenitor, Adam, resulting in original sin and death to all humans (Gen. 2–3; Eccl. 7:20; 9:3); and associated with this the second Adam's sinless human nature (Isa. 53:9). These miracles were upheld by the four General Councils of the Church Fathers' Era and all the major confessions of the Protestant Reformation. For those interested in subscribing to a model of evolutionary creation, it is certainly possible, as seen by reference to Orr, to hold these biblical fundamentals of the faith and maintain a certain kind of theistic evolutionary model.
©
[Ed. note: It is the policy of PSCF to edit gender specific terms, although it is against Mr. McGrath's religiously conservative Protestant value system.]
Notes
1Sketch from W.A. Elwell, ed., Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Michigan: Baker, 1993).
2Unless otherwise stated, biblical references are to the Authorized (King James) Version. Glen C. Scorgie, A Call For Continuity (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988), 114–5; cf. W. A. Elwell, ed., Handbook of Evangelical Theologians; James Orr, Christian View of God & the World, 7th ed. (Edinburgh, Scotland: Elliot, 1904), 415–8; Orr, The Fundamentals, vols. 4 and 6, 1st ed.; vol. 1., 2d ed.
3Robert C. Newman, "Scientific & Religious Aspects of the Origins Debate," PSCF 47, no. 3 (1995): 164–75, at 165; James Orr, The Bible under Trial (London: Marshall Bros., c. 1905), 157, 160–1; Orr>, God's Image in Man & its Defacement, 4th ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908), 52, 222, and 298–301; Orr, Christian View of God & the World, 178, 181–5 cf. 228–46; Scorgie, A Call For Continuity, 115–20. Cf. my letter,"Response To Bube" PSCF 49 (1997): 209–10. (I use the term "Semi-Pelagian" for those who accept some idea of original sin but adopt some element[s] of Pelagianism in devaluing it.)
4M. Wright, Fortress of Faith, 3d ed. (Bob Jones University [BJU], 1984), 103–8; R.K. Johnson, Builder of Bridges (BJU, 1969, 1982), 47,273–307,322–3, Word of Truth 118 (cf. D.M. Lloyd-Jones, What is an Evangelical? [Banner of Truth Trust, 1992], 22–4); Word of Truth 109;110;114;117;131;145;151;325;337;407;415; re: 122,141,443. The BCP (1662) refers to "fornication, and all other deadly sin" (Litany); but unrepentant fornicators and adulterers are forgiven (1 Cor. 6:9–11). Yet Jones disallowed repentant fornicators to become BJU students (Word of Truth 423), and said a repentant adulteress should leave town ("Neither Could They Blush" BJU), but the biblical teaching is more forgiving (Jer. 31:34; Matt. 18:23–35, NASB; Luke 15:11–32; 19:7–10); Word of Truth 148 ("telepathy"); Bob Jones' Sermons 1907 (BJU, 1983), 67 (pro-Masonry, see my article, "Religious Liberty ¼ ," Am. J. of Juris. 40: 280–3); Word of Truth 203 (prohibition); Word of Truth 105; 106; 145, cf. 228; 418 (no original sin/guilt), cf. Westminster Confession 3:3; 6:3; 10:3 and my article, "Soteriology: Adam & the Fall," PSCF 49, no. 4 (1997): 262–3, ftn. 27; H. Bennenson, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: 1963), 53–4; Word of Truth 106; 225; 228; 348 (denies God's universal Fatherhood); re: Billy Sunday: Word of Truth 124; Johnson, 47; Wright, Fortress of Faith, 202–3; W. Ellis, Billy Sunday (Chicago: Moody, 1959), 80, 142, 185–6; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), 241; A.H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Judson Press, 1907), 48–9,606–8,783–4. Johnson, 151,166 (anti-evolution) Word of Truth 222; 248; 435 (Scofield); 235,320,407 (Gap Theory). R. Numbers, The Creationists (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 209,281 (Morris & BJU). Unlike the Roman Church (Council of Trent 5:5), the Reformers distinguished between being declared righteousness by faith (justification) and righteousness from moral growth in holiness (sanctification). In this life, we are imputed with Christ's righteousness before God only by faith in a legal sense and due to original sin, sanctification never leads to sinless perfection but is attained at glorification when original sin's effects are gone (Rom. 1:17; 5,7,8). By contrast, Charles G. Finney devalued original sin and claimed regeneration was "an instantaneous change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness" (Strong, Systematic Theology 877); Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1951), 391,393,407,455–7.
5B.B. Warfield, Biblical & Theological Studies (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed Pubishers, 1968), chaps. 9 and 10; The Person & Work of Christ (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed Pub, 1950), 211,212,215; Biblical Foundations (London: Tyndale, 1958), 125–6. Noll claims Warfield was an evolutionist who "chided...Orr for...worrying about accepting `a purely evolutionary theory' of natural development" (Elwell, Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, 33). But in the article he refers to (Review of Orr's God's Image in Man), Warfield is committed only to "slight" evolutionary "variation" within a species, that is, micro-evolution; although he considers Orr's macro-evolutionary model a valid theory and within theological orthodoxy.
6Strong, Systematic Theology, 226,228,235 (unorthodox view of Scripture); 117–8 (unorthodox view on miracles); 660–4 (universal infant salvation at variance with [Amyraldian or Calvinist] view of Ps. 58:3; Rom. 9:11–13); 465–76 (theistic evolution); 476–83 (humanity's descent from Adam and Eve); 514–32 (original righteousness); 488–97 (human's soul on a traducianist model); 582–628 (humanity's fall in Adam on an Augustinian model); 676–8 (Christ's sinless human nature). (I also find his—and Orr's—treatment of humanity's monogenetic origin with respect to Eve unsatisfactory; although they accept "Eve...became the mother of every living person" Gen. 3:20, Berkeley Version.)
7E.g., in 1558 Reformation Anglicanism defined "heresy" as teaching contrary to: (1) "the words of the canonical Scriptures," (2) "the first four General Councils, or such others as have only used the words of the Holy Scriptures,"or (3) whatever is "hereafter...so declared by the Parliament, with the assent of the clergy in convocation" (Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. 4, 48). The Roman and Antiochian Churches are also Semi-Pelagian having misunderstood elements in the condemnation of Pelagianism (Ephesus). E.g., Coelestius taught "the law, as well as the Gospel, leads to the kingdom," and they both devalue original sin's effect and the creed's "We believe...in one Lord Jesus Christ" by rejecting justification by faith (Acts 16:31; Rom. 1:17; 7:18,19; 10:3–13). Moreover, in condemning the Nestorian heresy, Theotokos (Gr., Ephesus & Chalcedon) means "God-bearer" and stresses the Son's deity while in the bearer's womb; but Romanists and Antiochianists (and Puseyites) alter this to an emphasis on the bearer, translating it as "mother of God" and misusing it to develop unbiblical Marian theology.
8The Nicene Creed is the creed of the 150 Fathers, to which is added the words "God of God" from the creed of the 380 Fathers, the final "Amen," and in the Churches of Rome and the Reformation (but not the Antiochian Church—who "have erred" [Art. 19, The 39 Articles]), the filioque, that is, "and the Son" (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7; Acts 2:17,32,33, NASB; 16:7, NASB; Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6, RV; 1 Peter 1:11) in harmony with The Athanasian Creed, named after, but not written by Athanasius (like the Apostles' Creed was named after, not written by, the Apostles). Providing The Athanasian Creed's references to "the universal faith" are understood to mean on the matters specified, it is biblically sound and reminds us that wilfully unrepentant persons bearing the fruit of deadly sin (1 John 5:16–18) such as: (1) unbelief (Mark 16:16; Rev. 21:8), e.g., Mohammedans, Hindus, and Buddhists or (2) heresy (n.b. "let him be anathema" Gal. 1:6–9, RV and "heresies" Gal. 5:19–21, RV), are damned (see The Three Creeds, Art. 8, The 39 Articles), e.g., Antiochian/Eastern Orthodox (denial of the Holy Spirit's double procession from the Father and the Son), Jehovah's Witnesses (denial of the Trinity, e.g., Arianism and denial of the Holy Spirit's Personhood. Since the Second Person has always been the First Person's Son, he is "neither made nor created, but" "begotten from eternity" see Micah 5:2; John 1:1,14, 3:16–18; 1 John 4:9. Also denial that a human being has "a rational soul" and associated denial of hell or that Christ "descended into hell"); and religious liberals (e.g., those denying that a human being has a soul, the reality of hell, or the Second Advent).
9While I am a creationist (like Calvin), rather than a traducianist (like Luther), I think genetics, at least chiefly, creates a human. See Strong, Systematic Theology, 488–97 (A Traducianist's View) and Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 196–201 (A Creationist's View). Francis Crick claims "scientific findings" have "discredited the...notion...humans have a soul" (ASA Newsletter 40:6 [1998]: 1). In fact, they have only discredited one particular model of the soul. To "kill the body, but...not...the soul" in Matt. 10:28 pictures the brain as part of the body (cf. Acts 2:27). Angels, the Holy Spirit, or a human being's spirit are invisible to natural science and referred to by the Greek word pneuma in Heb. 1:7; 10:29; 12:9,23. The invisible soul preserves a copy of a human's brain—in areas science might discover—as it goes to God for judgment at death. The soul allows human beings to recognize the spiritual realm; and so is one part of being in God's image.
10The Papal Encyclicals 1939–1958, McGrath, USA, 1981, 240: 36–7. The New [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia 1(Catholic University of America, 1967), 115 says "speculation on" monogeny or polygeny remains "open" to Roman Catholics after Humani Generis. Orr's Christian View of God & the World, 7th ed., 416.
11The Book of Romans is St. Paul's magnum opus. In it, the universality of the human condition and the universality of the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 1:16,17, NASB) shows St. Paul understands all humanity to be Adamites. In Rom. 5:12–19, depending on how one translates vss. 16b and 18, "one" is used nine times (NASB), ten times (RV & ASV), or twelve times (AV) to show the Fall of the human race through "one" man, Adam, means God can redeem the race through "one" man, Christ. Thus Rom. 5 limits salvation to Adamites and so excludes fallen angels (cf. Heb. 2:9–17). "[F]lesh" is Gr. sarx and it includes a racial component, e.g., St. Paul says he is of the Jewish "race" (sarx, Rom. 9:3, NIV). This is relevant since in Rom. 5–8, St. Paul says Adamites are in racial slavery to sin and death. In Rom 6:1–14 (NASB) sin (singular) is pictured as a slave-driver but "shall not be master over you" (vs. 14, NASB); and the picture in Rom. 6:15–23 (NASB) is that of the slave-market in which every human is either a slave of sin or a slave of God. But this side of glorification, the believer has a conflict between the fact that in Christ we have "been freed from" the slave-driver of "sin" (Rom. 6:7, NASB), and in Adam we are "of flesh" (sarkinos, from sarx), "sold" as racial slaves "into bondage to sin" and "nothing good" "dwells" "in" our "[Adamic] flesh" (sarx, Rom. 7:14,18, NASB). Thus St. Paul looks forward to emancipation from racial slavery at glorification, but until then says "with the [Adamic] flesh" (sarx) he must "serve...the law of sin" (Rom. 6:18, NASB, 7:14,18, NASB,25). Since the opposite of racial slavery to sin and death is a sinless nature and immortality, it follows that Rom. 5–8 teaches a historic Fall by human's progenitor from a state of original righteousness and bodily immortality (Rom. 5:12–14; 7:14,18,25).
12Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 217,225; Orr, The Christian View of God & the World, 447. See my article, "Soteriology: Adam & The Fall," PSCF 49 (December 1997): 252–63 (and corrections, PSCF 50 [March 1998]: 78). While we do not know what the forbidden fruit was (traditionally it was an apple, which is not contrary to Scripture), I do not object to it. Likewise the phraseology of "the Fall" is extra-biblical <R>(2 Esdras 7:48, Apocrypha).
13J. Denney, Studies in Theology (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1899), 80,88; C. Gore, Can We Then Believe (London: John Murray, 1926), 197; Coelestius is referred to in Augustine, Anti-Pelagian Works (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), 193; Scorgie, A Call For Continuity, 115–20; J. Orr, Sin as a Problem of To-day (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1895), 140, 224–5, cf., e.g., 129–85; J. Polkinghorne, Science & Christian Belief (London: SPCK, 1994), 15; and Reason & Reality (London: SPCK, 1991), 71–3,99–104.