RE: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

George, you are quite right. However, there is the disturbing notion of having been created in the image of God. How are we to understand that?
 
Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of George Murphy
Sent: Sun 11/14/2004 8:27 PM
To: Dawsonzhu@aol.com; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

----- Original Message -----
From: <Dawsonzhu@aol.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 7:18 PM
Subject: Re: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

> George Murphy wrote:
>
>>But if this is true of all human beings, it was true fo the 1st humans (&
>>how many there were or when they lived is of 2dary importance.) &nbsp;That
>>raises
>>the question of how humanity came to be in this state. &nbsp;It isn't
>>sufficient
>>just to say that we've always been that way, for that suggests that God
>>created humanity (via the evolutionary process) as sinners, & thus that
>>God
>>is the creator of sin.
>
> I'm just wondering. If I grasp what you are saying here,
> this would mean that there really does have to be some sort
> of historical Adam and Eve: be they homo erectus, modern human,
> or whatever. Would it be wrong to see Adam and Eve as essentially
> figurative characters intended mainly for instruction? Your point
> seems to suggest that maybe this does have major theological
> problems.
>
> At least, it suggests that at some point, man (and woman)
> brought sin into the world, and if this is just a story
> about man's foolishness, t would not (in of itself) require
> Christ to have to come to redeem us. Have I missed something?

Let me take your last point 1st because I think a source of a great deal of
misunderstanding (& both anti-evolutionary & anti-Christian rhetoric) is the
notion that the need for a savior disappears if there was no fall into sin
of an "historical Adam." The reason a savior is needed is that all people
are sinners. The scriptural evidence for that claim is massive in
comparison with the rather sparse references to Adam &/or a fall.
Christ came to redeem us because we are sinners & can't save ourselves. How
& why the human race got into this predicament in which all its members are
inevitable sinners is an important question (as I noted) but not one that
has to be answered in order to show the need for salvation.

Then to the 1st point. There was some group of hominids that were 1st able
to be aware of God's communication & respond to it, & that can be considered
the 1st humans in a theological sense. Adam & Eve can be considered as
theological descriptions of those 1st humans, but Gen.3 is not an historical
account of the first human sin. It is a story about man's foolishness, but
more than that a story about humanity's failure to trust in God.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Sun Nov 14 21:33:44 2004