Perhaps that small group of early human progenitors that first migrated out of Africa wasn't "Bibliological" man -- not yet possessing God's image in a way that put them into the possibility of a covenant relationship with God.? Adam was the first "Bibliological" man, and his breaking of the first covenant between man and God affected us all, including, somehow, his contemporaries.?
I think that there are some problems with this view.??The "unfallen" people who still lived in Africa in great numbers (and who lived around Adam's neighborhood?in Mesopotamian) would?all be subject to pain, sickness?and death even before Adam fell.? But the biblical theodisy attributes these things to the Fall.? So the idea that mankind existed already out of Africa before Falling would upend the Biblical theodisy and do more damage to systematic theology than the alternative.? It would be throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Second, it raises the question whether Adam's contemporaries and forebears had any conception of morality?--?distinguishing between good & evil, which the Bible describes as causal?to the Fall.? That's a critical point.? The Bible doesn't allow us to think that the first sin was?simply failing some arbitrary test in the gaden.? No, the inspired text tells us that it was mankind's partaking in the knowledge of good & evil.? So we must ask, did the social behaviors of early homo sapiens prior to about 90kya when they left Africa imply?some conception of morality or justice???I think the answer from anthropologists is "yes".? I think it would be very difficult to claim that the knowledge of good and evil in some meaningful sense arose with some Mesopotamian individual after humans had left Africa.
Third, I think?the Mesopotamian Federal Adam?is more difficult to concord with Paul's view in Romans 5 than the more accomodationalist alternatives.? On the one hand, the Mesopotamian Federal Adam?does maintain the literal sense of Pauls' description for Adam as "one" individual, just as Christ is "one" individual.??The alternative, non-literal view is?that Paul's "one" is accomodationalist?for the group of earliest humans, referring to the literary "Adam" of Genesis 5?for an audience who couldn't possibly know the precise scientific details?and had no reason to know.? I don't think the literal sense of "one" Adam is critical to Paul's argument, since it would be just as valid a syllogism if he had substituted "one original tribe of humans" in place of one Adam.? The key point he is trying to prove is how surely grace will be transmitted to those who are in Christ, just as surely as sin & death were transmitted to?those who are members of humanity "in Adam."?
On the other hand, the Mesopotamian Federal Adam undoes the Minor premise of Paul's overall syllogism in that chapter.? The Major premise is that _if_ sin abounds to those who are in Adam, then much more will grace abound to those who receive of God's?gift and are thus in Christ.? Then, Paul's Minor premise is that sin has indeed abounded to?all of us who are in Adam.? Thus Paul's conclusion follows that grace will indeed abound to all of us who are in Christ.? But how could we be sure of the truth of Paul's syllogism if the?Minor premise were in doubt?? Nobody will knowingly construct a syllogism where there is any doubt about the Minor.? A successful syllogism always hinges critically on our complete willingness to accept the Minor.? But how can we be sure that sin has abounded to us for the particular reason that Paul claims -- to wit, because it was tranmistted to us by virtue of our being "in Adam" and not for any other reason?? For Paul to believe we would accept his sy
llogism, he had to believe that we would all know and accept that we are in Adam.? Whereas Paul defines how a person becomes "in Christ" in verse 17 (by receiving the gift of grace), he never defines how a person comes to be "in Adam".? It is just assumed that we all know that we are in Adam.? But where does the Bible ever tell us that we _are_ in Adam, if it is not simply assumed to be true through ordinary generation following out of Genesis 2 &c?
So I think the Federal Headship view of Adam?is fatal to Paul's argument.? Rather, I should say that Paul's confidence in his Minor premise belies?his own assumption that we all know that we are in Adam, and the only possible reason?he would assume this is?because in his view Genesis?2 &c present Adam as the universal progenitor.
For this reason, I think both NT and OT require us to see "Adam", whether literal or not, as being our universal progenitor.? We have to trace the existence of pain, sickness and death in this world to human sinfulness that hails back to our very origin (and no later); we have to trace the Fall of man back to the point where we became aware of good & evil (and no later); and we have to see the mechanism by which?sinfulness was transmitted to us as the biological one, "ordinary generation," as implied in early Genesis, so that it need not be explicitly stated later in the Bible why we are all in Adam.
For these reasons, I think George's view is pretty close to correct, but I have problems seeing how the Biblical theodisy works out in George's view.? Sin & pain were already present in the world before the Fall as George sees it.? I also have a hard time seeing how bona fide _spiritual_ fallenness is transmitted from "Adam", rather than mere genetic tendencies to be selfish, unless the Fall involved some spiritual transmission that goes beyond biology.? So that's why I'm currently hypothesizing that the Fall didn't even occur in spacetime.? Our early anscestors were aware of good & evil and were sinful just as soon as they arrived on the scene, just as soon as they bore God's image as humans, and so the world was created as "fallen" before we even arrived.? But Genesis presented it as an event within spacetime because however else would humans throughout history have understood the theodisy if it were presented any other way?
Phil
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Received on Sat Nov 24 22:52:01 2007
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