Thanks to Tim Challies' A La Carte this morning, I learned that NPR recently did a story on the growing number of evangelicals who are denying the historical existence of Adam and Eve. Thanks to NPR, I learned a little bit about why these evangelical scientists are raising these objections. Apparently, according to the most recent genetic theories based on the mapping of the human genome, people descended "from other primates as a large population." According to biologist Dennis Venema, who teaches at Trinity Western University, "scientists can't get that population size below 10,000 people at any time in our evolutionary history."
Now, I thought Lucy was the first human, who lived in Africa 3.2 million years ago. That was hard enough to swallow, but now we're supposed to believe that millions of years ago, 10,000+ human beings simultaneously appeared on the planet. Think about how evolutionary descent is supposed to work: Genetic mutation produces a modest change which proves to be advantageous and so is passed along in the successful new species. So, we're supposed to believe that the key genetic mutation that took us from ape to man (whatever that is - no one knows for sure) took place in 10,000 apes simultaneously 3-5 million years ago, all over the planet.
I am not a scientist. I do not even play one on TV. However, I am a thinking human being with a brain. My response on a human level is: "Come on? Really??" More importantly for me, though, is the fact that this is yet another step in the erosion of Biblical authority by those who allow the consensus of the scientific community to be a higher authority than the Bible.
I love science. Science is a wonderful way to explore and understand the complexities and wonders of God's creation. But the modern scientific community thinks it can read the genetic code and re-assemble the history of evolutionary descent. This is not science but speculation, not the scientific method but a detective work of fiction. Until we can witness one species giving birth to a new species and can measure the genetic difference between the two and then repeat that process over and over again, none of these speculations can be tested according to scientific methodology.
God says He took the dust of the ground and formed it into a man and breathed life into His body. He then put Adam to sleep, took a rib from Adam and formed Eve. Many people scoff at this and call it myth. Their more plausible and more scientific explanation is that 10,000 apes gave birth to humans simultaneously. I'll take my stand with God's Word.
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Added later because I realize I never made my point (Thanks, Tim!): The evangelical community cannot allow the scientific community to decide for us what parts of the Bible are accurate or not. This is a dangerous path to travel. We risk losing confidence in whatever the scientific community decides to attack at any given point- Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the miracles, the Bodily Resurrection of Christ and on and on . . .
We're in danger of replacing "Thus says the Lord" with "Thus says the scientists." Our culture has already made that fool's bargain. The church does so to her own peril.
I don't think that's an accurate representation of what the scientists are saying, so I will try to explain what I think they meant. I'm not a scientist, so I could be wrong, and I'm not even attempting to get into the theological side of things, but I'll do my best to accurately represent your opponents' views, because it's a good idea to at least respond to what your opponent actually believes.
ReplyDeleteGiven evolutionary theory, what is or isn't a separate species is a tricky thing, because species (in that framework) are a bit of an artificial construct. Chimpanzees and Bonobos are pretty darned similar, and maybe they could produce viable offspring with one another - But they don't. So, are they separate species or not?
With that in mind, I think evolutionary biologists and the like tend to talk more about "populations" - groups of organisms that interbreed and produce viable offspring. If a mutation is introduced in a population, it will probably spread through that population over many generations, particularly if it's a trait that results in more reproductively successful offspring (meaning that they have more babies than the ones without the trait).
If a population is split in two, by half of them migrating or something like that, it's entirely possible that, given enough time, the two new populations will eventually no longer be able to interbreed. Each population's genome will change as the generations go by, and eventually you have what we would call two separate species.
When they say that they can't get the population size below 10,000, they're not saying that 10,00 apes gave birth to 10,000 humans simultaneously. They're saying that, given the genetic diversity in the human genome today (measurable, I suppose) and what they know of the rate of introduction of new traits into the genome (and no, I don't know where they get this number from), there can't have been a population of less than ~10,000 individual beings from which we are descended since our popluation diverged from whatever common ancestor we have with chimpanzees/bonobos. If the population was ever smaller than that, there wouldn't have been enough time to develop the genetic diversity existant today.
It doesn't mean that 10,000 apes gave birth to 10,000 humans because, at the time that our population diverged from the rest of the apes, our population was probably pretty genetically identical to the ones from which it diverged. Over time, that population gradually changed and eventually resulted in the genome we call "homo sapiens" today, which the other population (assuming there were only two, which is a vast simplification) gradually changed into what we know as chimpanzees, but at the outset the two populations probably looked the same.
I don't know anything about theories as to why the population split into two (or more) separate populations or how long that took, but I do hope this explanation made more sense than the obviously ridiculous idea of 10,000 apes giving birth to 10,000 humans simultaneously.
Timothy, thanks for your explanation. It helpsm, somewhat. I categorically reject Darwinian explanations of the history of species development. I do know that the definition of a species is complex and has to do with populations that do not interbreed as much as with genetics. I just think the whole project of trying to reconstruct the "descent of man" or the supposedly multi-billion-year history of evolutionary development through comparison of genetic codes and degree of similarity/dissimilarity is a foolish one. It is based on too many assumptions which are just not empirically verifiable at all. Just as correlation does not equal causation, so I do not accept that similarity equals common ancestry nor that you can reconstruct anything like a timeline of change based on the % of difference. Even evolutionists themselves disagree as to whether evolution was a slow and gradual process which proceeded at a steady rate (which would be necessary for these calculations) or whether it has happened in a series of explosions of mutation and change at verious intervals (which seems to have more evidence in the fossil record). This is a case of the geneticists not agreeing with those who are focused on studying the fossil record. That's evidence to me that the whole project is fatally flawed. If one group of scientists, looking at genes, posits Theory A, while another group, looking at the fossils, posits Theory B, then the dots don't connect and something is amiss in the underlying assumptions.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I find it just as unlikely that a group (or various groups) of pre-chimp primates separated from the rest of the group and "developed into humans" (when? how?) while the group from which they separated developed into chimps. The whole molecules-to-man Darwinian project of trying to explain the development of life is, in my opinion, a fool's errand.
More importantly, I base my epistemology on the Bible as God's Word and the authoritative guide for helping us interpret scientific evidence. I believe the Bible is God's Word and is inerrant. I have the testimony of Jesus on this matter, and I will accept the testimony of Jesus over the testimony of biologists every time. I am not saying my interpretation of Scripture is 100% accurate all of the time, but if the Bible says God created Adam and Eve, then God created Adam and Eve.
I think science should stick to science and not to speculation about history that no one has witnessed and that no one can recunstruct. I think such speculation is largely a waste of time and money and is pursued because of a philosophical agenda to disprove God and the Bible. Scientists should stick to observable data and testable theories. Science describes what is and explains how things work, enabling us to discover new ways of doing things. As such, it is an incredibly valuable and vital pursuit. Science as the source of all knowledge and wisdom about humanity and life on earth is just another man-made religion.
My Title "How Far Will This Go?" is my real concern. If we allow scientists to determine what is true and false in our Bible, we're going to lose a lot more ground. Scientific consensus usually rejects the miraculous and so we'd have to do a Thomas Jefferson and throw out all of the miracles, if we continue down this path. Darwinism has told us that Genesis 1 is not possible. Now it's saying that Genesis 2 is not possible. If evangelicals accept these assertions, how long will we have an authoritative Bible? Well, the answer to that is "forever," because the Bible is not in danger of losing its authority. The evangelical world is in danger of removing itself from under the Bible's authority, which poses no risk to the Bible but, in fact, poses great risk to evaenglicalism (whatever that is anyway).
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that Darwinism says Genesis 1 is not possible. If God exists (and here you and I agree), then anything is possible, including Genesis 1 and all the other miracles in the Bible. Darwinism doesn't say God couldn't've done things the way a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis 1 says; it says he didn't. There's a difference there.
ReplyDeleteSome would say you can reinterpret Genesis in ways that still make sense with what scientists are saying, while still maintaining the meaning, the point of it all - others would not. Reinterpreting the Gospels in any meaningful way so as to eliminate the miracles... I've never heard of it. Jefferson just had to straight cut them out.
And that's my area of expertise: Is it legitimate to interpret Genesis 1 in a way that accomodates Darwinism? No. Genesis 1 is clearly historical narrative and the time sequences are normal days. I am absolutely convinced of the hermeneutics of Genesis 1. The alternative theories - day-age, analogical days, framework - just don't hold water under closer examination. But here's the "slippery slope" problem: Those who came up with creatuve ways of interpreting Genesis 1 had better get busy now and come up with some creative ways of interpreting Genesis 2 so as to make it say that Adam and Eve were not reral, historical persons. The liberal churches have solved the problem- They just label Genesis 1-11 as "mythology" and move on from there. Somehow that solution doesn't sit well with me. :)
ReplyDeleteI found an article that quickly summarizes the arguments on the genre and interpretation of Genesis 1 - "For what it is worth, I reject the Framework hypothesis for several reasons. First, the Hebrew text has fifty-one vav consecutives in Genesis 1 alone, and the vav consecutive is a verb form that is used in historical narrative, not in poetry. Second, the language in Genesis 1 is not symbolic. There are no metaphors or tropes in it. Third, it does not make use of parallelism which is so prevalent in Hebrew poetry — see the Psalms and much of Isaiah. Psalm 19:1 is an example of Hebrew poetry (notice the parallelism), 'The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.' And fourth, the New Testament makes at least one hundred references to Genesis 1-11 and none of these give any indication that they view it poetically." - More: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2261225/posts
Jason, what do you make of the fact that committed evangelical, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving scholars who have studied the issue of Genesis 1 for far longer and have more expertise than you disagree strongly on the subject? How much room for disagreement do you see on this subject among faithful Christians?
ReplyDeleteTo me this conversation boils down to do you believe the Word of God or not? Not scientists, or even scholars have an authority over Scriptures.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, I have studied the issue and have read all major positions. I think the other views were predominantly formulated as a way to stretch Genesis 1 to accomodate Darwinism. To me, that is a dangerous game to play with Scripture. They simply do not hold water textually. They are hermeneutically unsupportable. The clearest and most convincing arguments for the meaning of the text are those made by scholars defending the traditional view - 6 normal, 24-hour days. The room for disagreement depends on your definition of "faithful Christians." Do I think you can go to heaven while being a Christian Darwinist who embraces the framework hypothesis? Sure, as long as you trust Jesus and believe the Gospel. Do I think these other views are responisble ways of handling the text? No, I don't. It's a bigger issue than a disagreement over baptism but not salvation-critical in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteWhile I respect your opinion on the subject, I think that a 6-day perspective is also untenable from a textual perspective. From some of the earliest days of Christian scholarship, it has been recognized that certain aspects of the text (sun & moon before 24-hour days, plants before man/man before plants, God working in the day and resting at night) make a 6-day perspective less clear and convincing. I think that as we have learned more about the context of Genesis 1, to me it is clear that the framework hypothesis is the most textually faithful way to understand Genesis 1. I don't know if there's anything unique that a 6-day perspective teaches us about God that a framework hypothesis doesn't-- and, in fact, using the framework hypothesis allows us even more to see different dimensions of God's work as specifically rebuking the other ANE cosmologies of the day. For example:
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Waltke-Cosmogony-BSac.pdf
and
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Waltke_CreationIV_BSac.pdf
Now, I clearly don't think that a 6-day position does violence to the text in the same way that you do. But I do think it is the most faithful & appropriate way to read the Scripture.
The only way the framework hypothesis could be supported is if Genesis 1 was a unique genre unto itself, once which uses the vav consecutive verb structure in a way that is not consecutive, not indicating the next event which happened in a historical narrative. It bears none of the marks of Hebrew poetry. I will not dispute the fact that the text presents a set of exegetical difficulties. These are not impossible to overcome, as the church has done for 2,000 years.
ReplyDelete