RE: Special Creation

There is another important theological point that is being missed here
as well. If Adam was not the first human and the Imago Dei did not make
him genetically different from the others, there is nothing to prevent
his offspring from interbreeding with them, and then considering a local
non-universal flood, this opens a can of worms of implications about
modern man that I don't think any of us want to consider.
 
I think this is in part why there is a tendency among some to keep Adam
the product of special creation.

Cheers
 
John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of jack syme
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 7:25 AM
To: glennmorton@entouch.net; 'Terry M.Gray'; 'David Opderbeck'
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Special Creation

In all of this discussion about geneologies, mtDNA, and Adam, an
important theological point is not getting pushed aside somewhat and
that is the idea of special creation. Was Adam created out of the dust
of the earth as a new creature or not?
 
In the evolutionary model humans are part of the tree of life. We all
have a common ancestor that utlmately evolved into chimpanzees,
gorillas, and humans. So we are geneticall connected to primates, and
mammals to a lesser extent, and all vertebrates, etc etc. And in fact
the scientific evidence supports this. We have been focusing lately on
templetons autosomal analysis of human migration. But MHC loci,
psudogenes, and chromosomal banding patterns, clearly connect us to
apes.
 
So the scientific evidence suggests that we have to abandon the idea
that our progenitor, whether it was 100k or 1.5 Ma, was created out of
nothing with no connection to the rest of the tree of life.
 
At this point, I am leaning towards Dick's view. If the creation of man
means nothing about his actual first appearance (in a biological sense)
then there is no reason to make Adam a homo erectus. I am concerned
about Glenn's argument against evidence for a substantial flood in
neolithic times, which I think is the strongest argument against Dick's
view, (and this would apply to Phil's view also).

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Received on Wed Mar 1 11:54:52 2006