Re: Dating Adam

Pat Pun (pun@david.wheaton.edu)
Mon, 6 May 1996 21:55:11 -0500 (CDT)

Dear Dick,

I have been following your discussion with Glenn with interest although I
usuallly do not have time to read all of your posted arguments. I have
also glanced through your articles in PSCF. I remembered discussing the
issue of Progressive Creationism with you sometime ago at one of the
ASA's meetings, a view that you do not agree with.

I have serious doubts about your view of Adam not being the progenitor of
the entire human race. I studied a little bit of OT Theology when I was
getting my MA in Theology and I have as yet come across ANY OT
theologians (liberal or conservative) who espoused your view. I also
checked your view out with some of our theology professors here at
Wheaton College and they agreed with me. The most serious challenge to
your view is from Paul. He draws the analogy between Adam and Christ in
Rm. 5:12-21 and in I Cor. 15 (esp. 21,22). He also points to the unity of
all humans in Acts. 17:26.

ALL HUMAN sins in Adam, and they can be saved through Christ, the second
Adam. If only some of us are the descendants of Adam, who are we to
decide which races or which nations? God wants all to be saved (I Tim.
4:9, II Peter 3:9) through Christ alone (I Tim. 2:5, Acts 4:12) by grace
through faith (Eph. 2:8). If some of us are not the descendants of Adam,
how can we be saved through the second Adam, who came because of the sins
of the first?