Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?

One execllent theological reason to prefer a fully evolutionary view in which H. sapiens - & thus Jesus - really is related to chimps & other species is that this provides a way of understanding the biblical promises that "all things" are saved, reconciled to God &c through the Incarnation. I set out this argument a long time ago in a PSCF (then JASA) article available at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1986/JASA3-86Murphy.html .

A major failure in many of these discussions is the failure to approach the issues christologically. The usual Evangelical approach is, if I can coin a term, adamological.
This is almost exactly 180 degrees wrong. People start with themes like "In search of the historical Adam" or "Who was Adam?" instead of viewing matters in light of what the NT says about Christ.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: David Campbell
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 3:31 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?

  Aside from the various other ways in which this particular question is causing me angst right now, here is something else that bothers me about it. It seems to me that this question presents a particularly thorny issue for how and to what extent "science" may be used to intepret scripture vs. how and to what extent we need to assert scripture over against a particular scientific data point.

  When we consider the age of the earth / universe and the creation "days," it seems to me that it is easier to be flexible. There are any number of exegetical questions before we even get to the scientific ones. Moreover, messing with the age of the earth / universe involves basic physical constants like the speed of light that can't really be messed with under the anthropic principle. Finally, the theological issues seem somewhat less thorny -- though the question of death before the fall is not a small one.

  When we consider the exegetical issues concerning Adam, IMHO at least, there seems to be significantly less flexibility, at least within even a moderate "inerrancy" framework. IMHO, without disrespect to those who think otherwise, it does too much damage to the doctrine of scripture and to the narrative framework of scripture to suggest that the accommodation principle -- which I think is a valid principle generally -- goes so far as to render these texts essentially non-historical. So for me, this seems to be a place in which it might be appropriate to say that, while scripture does not teach "science," it does to some extent bear on "history," such that it might be appropriate to question the naturalistic assumptions underlying particular scientific models.

  In particular, it seems to me that the genetic continuity between humans and our presumed chimp ancestors, and population gentics studies based on presumed times of divergence and rates of mutation, do not render the traditional understanding of Adam impossible. They render it difficult, and perhaps unlikely, but not impossible. It is possible that God specially and miraculously created Adam using pre-existing hominid genes; and it is possible that God caused imago Dei man to be dispersed geographically in such a way that the histocompatibility diversity we observe today happened faster than the models assumed. This does not violate any fundamental physical constant such as the speed of light. It is a different kind, or at least a different degree, of question than the age of the earth.

  At the same time, we can tentatively propose some other scenarios. But in my view, it's unfair to equate some push-back here with "YEC thinking." Perhaps, like the wine at Cana, this really is a place at which methodologial naturalism, without the illumination of scripture, does not really reflect the truth of history.

  On Nov 12, 2007 3:03 PM, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:

    Actually, evolution does not absolutely rule out a single couple as
    ancestral to humanity. Glenn Morton's model develops this line of
    thinking. It posits some rather long gaps in the genealogies and has
    other difficulties, but then there are difficulties in any approach to
    reconciling the scientific data and Genesis 1-11. It is much easier
    to have rapid change in a small population. Any particular mutation
    important to making humans human would have its origin in a single
    individual. Many other variant scenarios with some sort of historical
    Adam are also possible.

    --
    Dr. David Campbell
    425 Scientific Collections
    University of Alabama
    "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"

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Received on Mon Nov 12 16:46:47 2007