Re: [asa] Humanity and the Fall: Questions and a Survey

David,

I'm not sure we do have conflicting stories with a Kidner-like model--
dated whenever--as long as all humans are represented by Adam and Eve
in their innocence, probation, fall, and proto-evangelium (the
covenant of grace with Adam and Eve).

To calm the fears of the anti-concordists, I'm not going to press a
particular solution here necessarily, but it does seem to me that
apart from the claim of ordinary generation from the single couple,
Adam and Eve, that all of the theological and historical aspects can
be preserved with this sort of solution.

This doesn't mean that all problems now have been solved. George
Murphy thinks that there may still be a problem with the imputation of
Adam's sin to people who weren't his descendants. I'm not totally
convinced. I'm not sure why being a descendant makes imputation more
just. Covenant headship is more of a legal/covenantal thing than
anything else. The whole notion of federal headship and imputation
strikes many moderns as unfair, but that doesn't necessarily make it
wrong.

Just a reminder, there's nary a hint of any of this in the Bible
itself (other than issue of Cain's wife, as Kidner mentions). All this
is speculation driven by some "unity of knowledge" (concordist)
motives. A good thing, rightly conceived! I engage in it not because I
want to come up with a detailed solution, but because I want to
demonstrate that the key historical/theological issues can be
preserved without disavowing the conclusions of modern science on this
point.

TG

On May 4, 2008, at 7:36 PM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> Rich said: The question is whether Scripture requires Adam and Eve
> to be the genetic forebears of all humans.
>
> I respond: Yes, it's that, but it's also the Fall. However we
> might qualify what the Fall means, surely it affects human life and
> relationship in a way that is not the least reflected in the
> scientific story. At some point -- this point -- don't we truly
> have conflicting stories?
>
> On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 9:29 PM, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> On May 4, 2008, at 7:16 PM, David Opderbeck wrote:
>
> Rich, this is very impressive, and apparently unassailable on its
> own merits, at least by someone like me, who really doesn't have the
> ability to study the primary literature and data intesively.
> Nevertheless, it conflicts with scripture, at least seemingly so,
> and many theologians of various stripes see it is a serious
> theological problem, much more serious than geocentrism or the days
> of creation. Is this not a place where we say, "thus far shall you
> go and no further?" Have we not reached here a place where the
> scientific method, which properly cannot admit miracles, is
> incompetent to deliver to us the Truth?
>
> The question is whether Scripture requires Adam and Eve to be the
> genetic forebears of all humans. I don't see that particularly since
> Jesus isn't either. In the debate of the timing for Adam and Eve
> the later, ANE context and the older African one have equal problems
> above because even here you have a group of individuals. (Here's
> where the name Mitochondrial Eve leads people astray there is not a
> single such "Eve" either.) Therefore, there is no good reason to go
> with the later dates. I suppose it could be real easy to go really
> far with this but as you say why should we?
>
> Rich Blinne
> Member ASA
>
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
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Received on Mon May 5 02:40:51 2008