Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

Hi Jack:
 
George Washington was the father of our country. I live outside
Washington named for him. How many of us do you think are related to
George? But by all means, pick a date for Adam that would allow
everyone in the entire human race to be related to him. As Adlai
Stevenson said, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes
over."
 
Dick Fischer, GPA president
Genesis Proclaimed Association
"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"
www.genesisproclaimed.org
 
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jack
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 2:23 PM
To: dopderbeck@gmail.com
Cc: drsyme@verizon.net; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")
 
I dont have any problem with Abraham's blessing being distributed to all
nations via means other than through "normal generation". In the case
of Abraham, the blessing could very well be to those that are not his
descendants.
 
I dont think this is the case with Adam however.

Nov 13, 2008 06:47:18 PM, dopderbeck@gmail.com wrote:
Except that we have a clear example of this with Abraham, who was to
become a "great and powerful nation" and through whom all the nations of
the world would be blessed (Gen. 18). Neither all of early Israel nor
the new Israel were / are Abraham's direct biological descendants.

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Jack drsyme@verizon.net> wrote:
Even if he is speaking of ensoulment and not a material special
creation, we still have the problem of how this "communion with God" is
"irremediably forfeited by sin" by one man who is not related to all men
through "normal generation" (WCF).
 
My point entails two assumptions. First that Adam was neolithic. I
suppose that if Adam was pushed back 100 k years or more, like the RTB
hypothesis, you might find a common ancestor.
 
It also assumes the federal headship view of the fall. I cant
understand this view without Adam as the head of all mankind, unless
they were his descendants. I just cant accept that Adam's fall would
curse other contemporaries and their descendants. (Bloesch seems to
dismiss this too with his point that other "pre-Adamites" would make not
contribution to the human race.)

Nov 13, 2008 06:09:29 PM, dopderbeck@gmail.com wrote:
Donald Bloesch is a moderate evangelical theologian whose work I greatly
admire. His view of scripture and epistemology resonate with me deeply.
In his "Essentials of Evangelical Theology," in the chapter on "Total
Depravity," Bloesch discusses the doctrine of the Fall. He states that
 
"[w]ith Reinhold Niebuhr we affirm not an ontological or transcendent
fall but a historical fall. Yet this does not mean that the story of
Adam and Eve as presented in Genesis is itself exact, literal history.
Not on Neibuhr but also Jacques Ellul, Paul Althaus, Karl Barth, Raymond
Abba, C.S. Lewis and many other evangelically oriented scholars would
concur. . . . It seems, however, that the story of the fall does assume
that mankind has a common ancestor or ancestors who forfeited earthly
happiness by falling into sin. . . . The lost paradise is not simply a
state of dreaming innocence before the act of sin (as in Hegel or
Tillich) nor a utopia in the past (as in some strands of the older
orthodoxy) but an unrealized possibility that was removed from man by
sin. It represents not an idyllic age at the dawn of history but a
state of blessedness or communion with God which has been given to the
first man and all men at their creation but which is irremediably
forfeited by sin."
 
Concerning Adam, he says "We also maintain that if the symbolism of both
Genesis 2 and 3 is to be taken seriously, the emergence of man is to be
attributed to a special divine act of creation and not to blind, cosmic
evolution." In a footnote to that statement, he says the following:
"We are open to the view of Karl Rahner that the first authentic
hominisation (coming into being of man) happened only once -- in a
single couple. Yet it would not contradict Christian faith 'to assume
several hominisations [pre-Adamites] which quickly perished in the
struggle for existence and made no contribution to the one real saving
history of mankind . . . .' [citing Rahner]".
 
It's unclear to me what Bloesch means by his statements about Adam. I'm
assuming by "special divine act of creation" he's referring primarily to
something like ensoulment, not material creation. I'm also assuming
that his emphasis on the non-literalness of the Gen. 2 and 3 stories, to
"a common ancestor or ancestors," and the footnote reference to
"pre-Adamites," means he's open to some degree of polygenism (Rahner, a
Roman Catholic theologian whom Bloesch cites, moved away from requiring
monogenism later in his career).
 
Does anyone know if Bloesch ever published any more detailed thoughts on
this? (He's retired now and apparently isn't reachable by email).
 

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
 
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Received on Thu Nov 13 15:18:52 2008