RE: The wrong horse in evolution education

Hi Peter, you wrote:
 
a) to dissociate the biblical Adam (Gen.2:7) from the first humans
created in God's image (Gen.1:27)
 
You and I are so close to being of like minds on this entire issue,
Peter, that I am almost tempted to concede a minor point, bite my
tongue, and climb on board so we can present a united front and go out
and kick the tar out of YECs and OECs – almost. Then I think, hey,
Peter could make the concession. Why should I?
 
Okay, let me just make this small recommendation. We can articulate our
differences on what I really believe is a minor point of interpretation.
Let’s see where the audience falls. Everybody chime in. You will
anyway.
 
As you know (some don’t) I believe that the “man” (‘adam) of Gen. 1:27
is the Neolithic Adam (man) of Gen. 2:7. IMO, they are the same man who
started the covenant race roughly 6800 years ago, not the head of our
biological species that extends beyond a million years. This means that
“Adam” is Adam, not there is a “man” of antiquity who is called ‘adam
because ‘adam and “man” can sometimes be synonymous.
 
The advantage to Peter’s approach is that it allows all mankind to be
“in the image” which is what people prefer to think. It fits in with
their prejudices. When pastors preach from the pulpit, “we all are
created in the image of God,” they could be right on this point,
whereas, under my approach, they are wrong. Adam was created in God’s
image, the rest of us blokes evolved from apes.
 
That’s an advantage Peter has with his hermeneutic and I acknowledge
that. On the other hand, in my heart of hearts I don’t think the writer
had Homo sapiens in mind. I think the writer of Genesis was writing
purely for the Israelites and couldn’t care less what gentiles thought
about anything.
 
When Christ is queried about divorce he answered: “But from the
beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And
they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one
flesh” (Mark 10:6-8).
 
Essentially, Christ links the two verses of Genesis.
 
Gen. 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them.”
 
Gen. 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and
shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
 
Does it seem logical that Christ would put these two verses together if
the “man” in Genesis 1:27 lived over a million years ago and the ”man”
in Genesis 2:24 lived 6,800 years ago? At least we would have to agree
that the word “beginning” is nebulous.
 
The second point I would make is that in the New Testament Christ is “in
the image.”
 
 
<http://bible1.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?word=col+1:15&ve
rsion=kjv&st=1&sd=1&new=1&showtools=1> Col 1:12-15: “Giving thanks unto
the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In
whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.”
 
That is, Christ represents God. Does every human being born into the
world since man and chimp parted company represent God? If so, then
what would be the distinction between the way Christ is a representative
and Sadaam Hussein is a representative?
 
Let me restate: I believe the “image of God” rests with Christ. He
represents God. We are in God’s image when we conform to the image of
Christ. It is not a birthright.
 
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
 
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Peter Ruest
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 1:16 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: The wrong horse in evolution education
 
Hi all,
 
a recent Science NewsFocus on evolution, C. Holden, "Darwin's Place on
Campus Is
Secure - But Not Supreme", Science 311, 769-771 (10 Feb.2006) laments
the lack
of success in science education with respect to evolution: "Professors
at many
U.S. universities say their students are learning about evolution
without
abandoning their belief in some form of creationism."
 
Unfortunately, much of current thinking in this area is still steeped in
the
antiquated belief in the warfare model of science vs. religion, or
evolution vs.
creation. In the article and the persons interviewed, there is hardly
any
attempt to distinguish YEC, OEC, ID, TE and other Christian models.
Rather, one
just tries to convince the students that evolution is correct and
creation wrong.
 
Of course, the main /pièce de résistance/ remains the common ancestry of
humans
and apes. But nobody seems to think that both evolution and creation
could
possibly apply.
 
Now, confronted with their failure to convince a large percentage of the
students that they were not created by God but descended from apes, some
evolutionists are trying to convince them of the reality of "evolution"
looked
at in a much wider context, such as computer simulations of digital
organisms,
or in social and behavioral science.
 
Will they succeed? I think they might face a sad disappointment. They
are
backing the wrong horse.
 
The strongest evidence, by far, for the reality of evolution in the
sense of
common biological descent is found exactly in the case of the common
descent of
humans and apes, namely in the molecular genomics context, with the
hundreds of
cases of copied errors in nonfunctional sequences. But of course, no
evidence
for this will ever be accepted by Christian students, as long as the
insidious
lie of the warfare model with its implication of absolute
incompatibility of
evolution and creation continues to be perpetrated.
 
On the other hand, digital organisms risk to be recognized as what they
are:
allegories of life, rather than realistic models of it. And "evolution"
in
social and behavioral sciences might risk to be recognized as having
very little
to do with biological evolution. In both cases, criticism of biological
evolutionary thinking will be strengthened among many students, rather
than
diminished.
 
YECs and some other Christians, as well as all atheists continue to
emphasize
the "creation _or_ evolution" warfare model. But the only way out of the
impasse
is to recognize the reasonableness of "creation _and_ evolution" models.
 
And these models must be consistent, in that they include human origins.
If such
models are to be successful in the longer run, and among all kinds of
Christians, they have to recognize:
1) the theological significance of Adam as representing all humans
(being a
federal head, rather than a common ancestor);
2) the archeological and biblical evidence for Adam's placement in
Holocene Sumer;
3) the genetic evidence for the biological relatedness of all existing
humans
and all their precursor fossil Homo sapiens back to at least about
60,000 if not
100,000 or more years ago;
4) the archeological evidence for early spirituality in humans (how
early? this
depends on very difficult interpretational judgements).
 
The only possibility I see at present of conforming to conditions 2) and
3) is:
a) to dissociate the biblical Adam (Gen.2:7) from the first humans
created in
God's image (Gen.1:27);
b) to combine the biological and psychological evolution of the first
humans
with their spiritual creation "in God's image" at a given point in time
(no
requirement of the first humans to have no biological parents!).
 
As you know, I am against too easy accommodationism and mythologizing of
the
Bible text - we need to take seriously all of it. So these questions are
not
irrelevant.
 
Shalom!
 
Peter
 
 

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)