A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me a message that he had written a critique of some of my earlier blog posts regarding the issues of theistic evolution, Adam and Eve, and original sin. I’ll link his critique here: An Orthodox Critique of Dr. Joel Anderson. His story seems to be pretty interesting—a former evolution-believing atheist turned Orthodox YECist. In any case, since he took the time to write a rather long critique, I thought I’d write a brief response here.
All in all, CodexJ took issue with my critique of Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin and his view of sexuality and marriage. He seemed to think that my saying I disagreed with Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin that I was denying human beings were sinful. When I pointed out that Augustine’s doctrine essentially made sex itself sinful and the transmitter of sin to children, CodexJ argued that though sex isn’t sinful, that it is impure. And when I stated that early Church Fathers didn’t teach (contrary to what Ken Ham teachers) that Adam and Eve were “perfect,” CodexJ argued that the Church Fathers taught that Adam and Eve were created incorruptible and innocent—basically, though not necessarily perfect, they were created sinless. He further argued that if God didn’t created them innocent and sinless, then that would mean that God was the author of evil. Then, in the last quarter of his critique, he provided a number of quotations from a number of Orthodox writers and councils that seemingly refute my argument.
My Response
I’m just going to informally go through a number of items from his critique that I feel he has either misunderstood my argument. First of all, I think he goes a little overboard by saying I “hate Augustine.” I don’t. He is one of the most influential Western thinkers and theologians. I just think his actual doctrine of Original Sin is wrong. Secondly, CodexJ has misunderstood my critique of Augustine’s doctrine. Allow me to reiterate what Augustine actually said. Warning—we’re going to talk about sex!
In Augustine’s day, there were a number of Christian theologians who had a very negative view of sex. They didn’t see it as a good gift from God, but rather as a dirty, sinful act in and of itself, and said that even married couples who engaged in sex were sinning. Some even speculated that before the Fall, that Adam and Eve would have procreated some other way—just not sex, because….ewww! Augustine, though, saw that view as unbiblical, and it is. Still, before he became a Christian, he was quite the playboy whose past no doubt influenced what he ended up teaching. Here it is in a nutshell:
(1) Sex is a good thing that God created;
(2) If Adam and Eve would have conceived a child before the Fall, it would have been through sex;
(3) But after the Fall, sex was “contaminated” with feelings of passion and pleasure;
(4) Before the Fall, Adam and Eve could have had sex and made their sex organs work through the use of their reason (sort of like how you can “hold it” until you get to the bathroom before you urinate), but after the Fall, feelings of passion and pleasure took hold to where, when a man becomes aroused, he just gets an erection and can’t help it;
(5) Because of that (let’s jump to the present day), that means when your parents had sex on the night you were conceived, your father had an erection—and that erection, Augustine stated, is the sign of Original Sin. (On this point, CodexJ incorrectly says that I claimed Augustine was saying sexual intercourse was the sign of Original Sin. No, Augustine said the male erection was the sign).
(6) Furthermore, chances are that both your parents orgasmed, and voila!—you were conceived. But according to Augustine’s doctrine (and here’s the point), the reason why you are sinful is that you were literally “conceived in sin,” meaning the “sin” you were conceived in was you’re parents’ achieving orgasm and enjoying sex.
Needless to say, there are a number of things wrong with that view, and in the post to which CodexJ refer, I explain them in more detail. To reject Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin is not to deny all human beings are sinful, and it is not to deny that human beings are affected by the sins of earlier generations. But it does mean that I don’t think sin is a sexually-transmitted disease. And, for all intents and purposes, that is what Augustine’s doctrine reduces sin to. Furthermore, I said that the way many of early Church theologians (and many throughout the past 2,000 years for that matter) have read this particular negative view of sex back into Genesis 3 is simply wrong. The cold, hard fact is that Genesis 3 does not say anything about sex being sinful or about orgasms and erections being the physical sign of Original Sin.
Of course, if you think that Genesis 1-3 is history and that there was a historical Adam and Eve who were created in a literal state of innocence and sinlessness, then it is quite easy to be driven to that conclusion. After all, if a historical Adam and Eve sinned, then why would Cain and Abel be sinful? They didn’t eat the forbidden fruit—Ah! It must have had something to do with sex, because children are born nine months after their parents engage in sex! Simply put, once you assume Adam and Eve were historical people, then you are driven to then look for a literal point in time when sin came into the world.
I think that view is misguided and unbiblical. I don’t think Genesis 1-3 (or Genesis 1-11, for that matter) is supposed to be understood as literal history. Therefore, Genesis 3 isn’t trying to tell us where and at what point in time sin entered the world, and it isn’t telling us why you are sinful (i.e. Adam and Eve at the forbidden fruit and then had sex and transmitted sin to the human race because they enjoyed sex). Rather Genesis 3 is telling us, “YOU are Adam. This story is ABOUT YOU. God created you in His image and you have dignity and worth, but you also are naïve, immature, childish, AND YOU SIN.” Still, the entire biblical witness further declares that God loves you and has promised to redeem you, sanctify you, and transform you from your natural, childish, and sinful state to a Spirit-empowered and sanctified state of full maturity in Christ.
That’s what the Good News of the Gospel is: Human beings in their original, nature state aren’t God’s finished product. God’s plan all along has been to start with the natural (i.e. Adam) and to sanctify and transform it into the supernatural (i.e. Christ).
Further Comments
Given that, I feel that much of CodexJ’s critique is rooted in misunderstanding my view. It simply is true that the doctrine of Original Sin essentially makes God out to be unjust because it says that God is punishing you for Adam and Eve’s sin that they transmitted through sex to the rest of humanity. It basically says you were born with a clubbed foot, through no fault of your own, but God is going to punish you for not being able to run anyway. Now, that’s not what Genesis 1-3 says, and that’s my point. Therefore, when CodexJ implies that I deny that human beings are born in a sinful state and states my view is semi-Pelagian, he’s just misunderstanding my critique. I’ll say it again: Genesis 3 isn’t telling us WHY human beings are sinful (i.e. it’s Adam and Eve’s fault), but rather THAT human beings are sinful (i.e. you are Adam).
Now, we, being creatures of this original creation who are confined to the perspective of “time,” might naturally ask, “But when did sin ‘start’? Why am I sinful? Whose fault it is?” But God doesn’t tell us, and that’s His prerogative. If anything, He says, “You’re sinful because you’re sinful—YOU sin, it’s YOUR fault. Stop committing the second sin in Genesis 3 by trying to blame someone else for it.”
Another thing I feel CodexJ gets wrong is my critique of both Augustine’s and many other early Church theologians’ view of sexuality and marriage. Again, many taught that sex in and of itself—even within the bonds of marriage—was inherently sinful. Again, Augustine taught that it wasn’t the sex that was sinful, but just the pleasure part. CodexJ pushes back on this by appealing to the purity laws in Leviticus and Paul’s comments on marriage in I Corinthians 7. To the point, I think he simply misunderstands both. A long, drawn-out discussion of the Old Testament purity laws is impossible here, but to the point, they distinguished between things that were ritually pure and impure. They were not saying (as CodexJ claims they do) that “having sex with your wife” was “an impure result of the Fall and unworthy of God’s presence.”
As for Paul’s comments in I Corinthians 7, CodexJ is wrong to say that Paul is saying that marriage itself “exists as a concession to the weakness of man, to serve as a protection against fornication.” And he is wrong when he claims that Paul tells married couples that they “should try to imitate the celibate life by refraining from sex ‘for the sake of prayer,’ thus affirming the Mosaic principle that staying away from sex results in an elevated state of holiness and closeness to God.”
Yes, Paul does say that if someone can’t control his/her sexual urges, that it is better to get married than to burn with your passions and go around committing fornication. But he never says, “Okay, just realize, though, that God created marriage simply for you perverts who can’t control yourself. Fine, have sex within marriage, but it’s still not a good thing!” And Paul most certainly does not tell married couples to try to imitate the celibate life. What he says is that if a married couple wants to refrain from sex for a time “for the sake of prayer,” that’s fine, but then they should come together and have sex again—why? Because marriage and sex within marriage isn’t sinful. Sure, as a practical matter, a single person is not going to be tied down with the extra responsibilities of marriage and a family, and is therefore freer to devote more time to sharing the Gospel, etc., but we need to be clear, Paul is not saying married couples who engage in sex within marriage are someone “not as holy” or “not as close” to God.
In the last portion of his critique, CodexJ shares numerous quotes from a number of Orthodox theologians throughout the centuries, as well as number of declarations made in various councils that reflect statements regarding how human beings “inherit” sin from Adam, how Adam and Eve were historical figures. I don’t have time to go through all of those statements, but I encourage anyone to read them. I will make just a couple of comments.
At one point, he quotes Isidore of Pelusium as saying, “Humanity is like the angels in its chastity, but marriage, is differed in no way from the beasts, for whom intercourse is necessity.” And then later he quotes John Chrysostom: “Desire for sexual intercourse, conception, labor, childbirth and every form of corruption had been banished from their souls…. At that time there were no cities, crafts, or houses. Nevertheless, nothing either thwarted or hindered that happy life, which was far better than this… Up until that time [of the fall] [Adam and Eve] were living like angels in Paradise and so they were not burning with desire, not assaulted by other passions, not subject to the needs of nature…”
He appeals to these men, as well as to a number of other theologians and Church councils, to essentially argue that because they spoke of Adam and Eve as historical people who were originally “like the angels” and who didn’t possess base, natural desires—that therefore I’m wrong in what I say. To that, I will simply say that as great a theologian as John Chrysostom was, he’s not God; he’s not infallible. Just like Augustine isn’t infallible, just like Maximus the Confessor isn’t infallible. And to use various statements by various councils as appeals to authority is also problematic because history shows that a lot of councils a lot of problematic declarations—even condemning figures like Origen and Maximus the Confessor as heretics. Besides, when you read the statements CodexJ quotes, it isn’t hard to see that he basic point these theologians and councils were making was that the Bible clearly teaches human beings are sinful—that’s the point. It is wrong to claim human beings are born sinless (i.e. like Pelagianism). Genesis 3 clearly is teaching that human beings sin. “Adam” is you and me—Genesis 3 is our story, that’s what we do. That’s the point.
How does all this relate to YECism? Well, it’s rooted in the claim that Adam and Eve were historical people who lived 6,000 years ago. Sorry, they weren’t. That reflect the problematic YECist assumption that because Genesis 2-3 talk about Adam and Eve, and because Jesus and a few other NT authors mention Adam and Eve (and Noah, for that matter), that that must mean they were affirming they were literal, historical figures. I just think that assumption is wrong.
In any case, I want to thank CodexJ for taking the time to write his critique. I think when it comes down to brass tacks regarding the sinful state of humanity, I think we’re in agreement. We just disagree concerning whether or not Adam and Eve were historical people, and whether or not their historicity is essential to the teaching that all human beings are sinful. And, of course, I think there is a slight misunderstanding concerning my critique of Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin. For clarity’s sake, I’ll end with this. I came to my conclusion about the problems with Augustine’s doctrine back in the mid-90s, long before I ever waded into the whole Creation/Evolution debate. Therefore, my view isn’t a “theistic evolutionary” interpretation. It my best attempt to be faithful to the biblical text and to interact with what I feel are the problems with Augustine’s view.
Dr. Anderson,
Thank you for the charitable response, I always appreciate when people can avoid polemics and name calling and get straight to the point.
However, as cliché as it sounds, I think this response fails to address some of the points I made that I find to be the most compelling. I would just write another response, however I don’t really foresee the fruit of writing “Response to Dr. Anderson #125” haha, so instead would you be interested in having a live or private discussion about this topic at some point? If so, please email me and we can set something up: benbollinger271@yahoo.com
I hope you have a blessed Lenten season,
-Codex
Perhaps, but for now, if you could bullet point a few items you think I missed, I’d like to know. No big responses, but just a few bullet points.
Sorry I ended up making this comment really long, that’s why I preferred to just discuss it on a debate or something cause I always end up doing this in comments haha, anyways, here’s my response:
To begin with, this article does not in any way address the Orthodox doctrine of original sin. In my article I explained the reason why original sin does not make God unjust: it’s because it’s not an active punishment for a sin we didn’t commit, rather it’s a natural deprivation of that which we were not owed in the first place (i.e. the presence of God in Heaven) through our descent from Adam. This is what you deny, and this is what I was criticizing you for, not simply for you not believing we’re born in a sinful state, which is simply the logical consequence of your view: If we do not inherit original sin from Adam and Eve, then whence comes the death of infants? They have no personal sins, and yet they still die, so does God kill them? Does nature kill them? Is sin not really the cause of death? This was the question St. Augustine posed to the semi-Pelagians, and no amount of obfuscating can get around this.
Moreover, as a biblical basis for original sin, I appealed to the connection between Noah’s curse of Ham’s descendants in Genesis 9 and God’s curse of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, arguing that these two stories are literarily designed to shed light on one another, and the former case of Noah and Ham provides a concrete, biblical, example of children inheriting curses from their parents, thus illuminating how we inherit the curses that were put on our first parents. Rather than addressing these arguments, you simply assert, “that’s not what Genesis 1-3 says,” yet you don’t actually demonstrate why my (and the Orthodox Church’s) reading of Genesis 3 is actually incorrect, you just appeal to your own private interpretation of Scripture, elevating it above not only the Church’s tradition, but also sound biblical interpretation which I have built off the back of legitimate scholars that you yourself recommend, such as Peter Leithart. You say that Genesis 3 is simply telling us “that” we sin and not “why” we sin, but who says this? Does the Church say this? Do the Fathers or Saints say this? In your article on St. Irenaeus, your entire point was that Ken Ham’s worldview is contradicted by the witness of the early Church Fathers, yet when presented with Fathers (including Irenaeus himself) who teach something very close to what Ham teaches, you appeal to the same standard that he did, namely that they’re “just men” and their opinions don’t matter that much. This is not the Orthodox approach to Scripture, that is a modern Protestant approach, as you yourself recognized in your debate with Kent Hovind as he was dismissing the witness of the Church Fathers.
Unfortunately, your Protestant-like approach to Scripture is even more damning in light of your comments on the Ecumenical and Pan-Orthodox Councils of the Church. You say that I cannot “appeal to these authorities” with regard to a theological question like original sin, because…. why? Your only argument in favor of this position is saying that the Church condemned Origen (presumably wrongly?) and St. Maximus the Confessor, and therefore it’s “problematic” to consult the Councils of the Church when we have a question regarding dogma. However, Origen was indeed a heretic who has been and is still condemned by the Church, and St. Maximus, far from being condemned by an Ecumenical Council (he was condemned by a robber-Synod, which has always been recognized as null and void), he was actually praised at the 6th Ecumenical Council, something I stated in my article. In the Church, what makes a Council Ecumenical is not arbitrary. We have a very consistent canonical theory behind this, as the 7th Ecumenical Council literally addressed the question of what makes an Ecumenical Council different from a robber-Synod, which you can see documented at length in UbiPetrus’ article series “What Makes a Council Ecumenical” as well as his recent response video to Roman Catholics who used this as an objection against the faith. In Orthodoxy, we firmly believe that all of the dogmatic decrees of Ecumenical Councils are infallible and binding on the faithful, and this includes the Pan-Orthodox Councils of the post-schism era, which have the exact same level of authority as the original Seven Councils, as virtually all Orthodox Patriarchates today recognize (cf. Crete +2016). Thus, you simply dismissing the 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils, as well as the Pan-Orthodox Councils of +1642 and +1672 as irrelevant to dogmatic questions… that’s what’s really problematic. If your interpretation of Scripture is not governed by the Church, then who is it governed by? If it’s true that the Ecumenical Councils can make dogmatic errors, then what exactly stops me from not recognizing the Nicene Creed as legitimate? After all, “the Church has been wrong before,” right? Maybe I’ll decide to revive Arianism and brand it as Orthodox Christianity. If you have no authority that sets the boundaries of your Scriptural interpretation, then there is nothing in principle that separates you from Protestants. This is why St. Vincent of Lerins famously declared that, in order to discern the true meaning of Scripture, we must first turn to the Ecumenical Councils, and then the writings of the approved Fathers and teachers of the Church, and then if we’re still unsatisfied, we have to interrogate the opinions of the ancients with wisdom. Throughout your article series, I don’t see you applying this principle, and thus when you claim to be speaking for the Orthodox Church on the doctrine of original sin, this is simply deceptive.
Now my comment is already very long and I do apologize for that, but I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t find it necessary for defending the integrity of the Orthodox Church. With regard to your comments on sex, you once again did not at all interact with my argument. At no point in my article did I say that sex is sinful, and in fact, I have yet to see a single Father of the Church who said this-you keep talking about them, but who exactly are you referring to? Rather, the point that I and the Fathers do make is that sex is impure, which is DIFFERENT from being sinful. You simply dismissed my discussion of Exodus and Leviticus without even addressing the point I made, which was this: The Levitical purity laws can be directly mapped onto curses from Genesis 3 (see a good friend of Peter Leithart, James Jordan, for a detailed proof of this), which tells us that these purity laws are telling us something about the Fall of Adam and Eve. What does it mean to be ritually impure? It doesn’t mean that you’re sinful, rather it means that you do not have the level of holiness required to be in God’s presence. Thus, the fact that Leviticus 15 lists sexual activity as impure tells us two things: 1.) sex as it exists today is a result of the Fall, and 2.) sexual activity, which is not intrinsically sinful, nevertheless lowers your state of holiness and makes you unfit for God’s presence. Prophet Moses made this exact point in Exodus 19 when he commanded the Israelites to refrain from sex before God’s descent on Mt. Sinai. If Moses didn’t believe sex was impure and unworthy of God’s presence, then why did he specifically forbid sexual activity for those about to enter God’s Holy Place? Why did he write in Leviticus that it makes husbands and wives impure until they are cleansed? Was it just for no reason at all? Moreover, why does St. Paul believe that refraining from sex allows a husband and wife to enter more fully into prayer? Why does the Church’s tradition forbid sex during fasting seasons and before the Liturgy? Has it just been the case that every single Prophet, Father, Saint, Canonist, and Theologian has been wrong about this question before Dr. Joel Anderson came around to teach them the truth? While it’s true that a Church Father does not possess the gift of infallibility on his own, the consensus of the Fathers (which is a reality attested to by all of the Ecumenical Councils) does enjoy infallibility, and the consensus on this question is undisputed: sex is not sinful, however it is impure. This was St. Augustine’s very point about not only sex, but just concupiscence generally: it is a consequence of the Fall that makes us unworthy of God’s presence until it is cleansed in baptism. While it’s true that Augustine did speculate at times that lust itself was the cause of original sin, Daniel J. Castellano documents at length in his excellent e-book “The Origins of Original Sin,” parts III and IV, that such a belief was never something Augustine held as definitive, and his overall doctrine of original sin is not at all necessitated by it. However, what is necessitated by it, is the existence of an historical Adam and Eve, from whom we inherit liability, yet not culpability, a teaching that is the official belief of the Orthodox Church.
1. I was commenting on Augustine’s claim that sin was transmitted from a historical Adam and Eve to the rest of humanity BECAUSE OF the passion they felt when they had sex. There is simply zero evidence of that in the Bible, anywhere. That is wrong and will always be wrong.
To address the rest of your first paragraph, let me quote Bishop Kallistos Ware in The Orthodox Way, “For the Orthodox tradition, then, Adam’s original sin affects the human race in its entirety, and it has consequences both on the physical and the moral level; it results not only in sickness and physical death, but in moral weakness and paralysis. But does it also imply an inherited guilt? Here Orthodoxy is more guarded. Original sin is not to be interpreted in juridical or quasi-biological terms, as if it were some physical ‘taint’ of guilt, transmitted through sexual intercourse. This picture, which normally passes for the Augustinian view, in unacceptable to Orthodoxy. The doctrine of original sin means rather that we are born into an environment where it is easy to do evil and hard to do good.”
2. In Genesis 3, God does NOT curse Adam and Eve. He curses the serpent and he curses the ground. But the connection to Noah and Ham is different from what you’re saying. The consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin was a “war of the offspring,” and Cain, by his sin, showed himself to be the “offspring of the serpent,” while Seth (who takes Abel’s place) is the “offspring of the woman.” And that goes to the purposes of the genealogies in Genesis 1-11. I’ve written on this in another post. The consequence of Ham’s sin against Noah is, again, a division between Ham on one side (proving himself to be the “offspring of the serpent”) and Shem/Japheth on the other–with the Hebrews coming from Shem (the “offspring of the woman”). And why is Ham continually said to be the “father of Canaan”? Because at the time of the Exodus, where were the Hebrews going? Canaan? What where they supposed to do? Drive the Canaanites out. Why? Because they were a perverse people, just like Ham was in the story.
3. I will reassert that Genesis 3 is telling us THAT we sin, and isn’t trying to lay the blame on someone else.
4. Regarding the numerous councils–they did not have access and had no knowledge of the ancient Near Eastern literature we have today, meaning they were attempting to interpret Genesis 1-3 without ANY knowledge or understanding of the original literary and historical context in which it was written. Today, we simply are in a better, more informed position, to properly interpret them. Having said that, even without that knowledge, they still came to the correct fundamental point that Genesis 1-3 is getting at: Human beings are sinful. They use the language of “sin passed on from Adam,” while I am saying that human beings ARE Adam and the story of Adam is the story of how human beings are sinful. The destination of both interpretations is the same destination. But since they had no understanding of how ANE myth worked, they wrongly–just like Ham–thought Adam and Eve were historical figures.
5. Your comparing this to reviving Arianism is silly. Arius taught that Christ was not equal with God and that he was just a created being. Nowhere in Church history was that every taught. I am saying the point of Genesis 3 is that human beings are sinful, but that it isn’t attempting to say that sin is passed down from an original couple through pleasured-filled sex. The point of the councils that you quote is that Genesis 3 teaches human beings are sinful and that the Pelagian view that they aren’t born with sin is wrong. That is correct.
6. I don’t claim to “be speaking for the Orthodox Church.” I speak as an informed biblical scholar and I point out that Irenaeus’ view of Adam and Eve is NOT like that of Ken Ham’s.
7. Again, Augustine said that the male erection is the sign of original sin because when a man is aroused, it just happens and that man cannot control it by use of his reason. He speculated that if sin hadn’t entered the world that could have controlled their sex organs by their reason and will and that no pleasure or passion would be involved. None of that is in the Bible–and THAT is what I was commenting on. The point of Genesis 3 is that human beings are sinful, and we are. The moment anyone tries to argue that sex or passion during sex is the means by which sin is transmitted to the rest of humanity is the moment that “anyone” goes way off course.
8. I am a human being. I sin. That’s the point. I am a human being and thus am “in Adam” because the very name “Adam” MEANS “mankind.” To insist that Adam and Eve were historical people, though, really comes down to a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the genre of Genesis 1-11. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that the POINT of Genesis 3 is that human beings are sinful.
1. Sorry but this is a complete non-argument. Your claim was that the doctrine of original sin makes God unjust because it would mean He punishes us for a crime we didn’t commit. I showed this objection to be wrong, and you have provided no counter-argument, instead only citing a non-authoritative opinion of one of our hierarchs. I recommend you do some more research on Orthodox ecclesiology to understand what our sources of dogma are, because the Church is not a cafeteria of picking and choosing which beliefs you follow and which ones you don’t. Not to sound too blut, but either you accept it wholesale, or you find a different Church. We have objective criteria by which to establish our doctrines: the teachings of the Ecumenical Councils, the Fathers, the liturgies, and so on. While we should hold our hierarchs’ writings with charity, they cannot supplant “the faith of the fathers… the faith which has established the universe,” as we will be singing this coming Sunday of Orthodoxy.
2. God didn’t curse Adam and Eve, but only the ground and serpent? Are you sure about that? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point here, but the text seems pretty clear: “God said to the woman, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children’… To Adam he said… ‘By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’” Am I missing something? This sure sounds like God is cursing Eve to have pains in childbirth and He’s cursing Adam to death, two of the few things that result in ritual impurity in Leviticus (curious, isn’t it?)
Moreover, nothing you’re saying about Cain and Abel’s relation to Ham and his brothers refutes what I’ve said. There is a lot of typology going on in the story, and you’re simply looking at it from a distinct (not contradictory) angle. Because it’s also true that Noah is portrayed as a God figure (he plants a garden, rests, has the power of life and death, and issues blessings and curses) and Ham is an Adam figure (he rises up against his father’s authority and ends up cursed). Moreover, the story of the Flood recapitulates the creation week day by day in reverse, starting (like creation ended) with man and the animals, and ending (like creation began) with the Ark “hovering over” the waters. This tells us that the 7th day, which I’d argue is the day on which Adam and Eve fell (see Meredith Kline’s work on that), is told with the story of Noah and Ham, so the connection really cannot be disputed.
3. Once again, this is just an assertion, and it isn’t actually in the text. The text tells us about two people who sinned and brought death and destruction into the world. These two people (as well as the rest of the characters of Genesis 1-11) are treated as historical figures throughout the rest of Scripture, because there is literally zero evidence of a break in structure between Genesis 1-11 and Genesis 12-50. Abram is listed as part of Noah’s genealogy, who himself is listed as part of Adam’s genealogy, and both of these characters show up in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Do you honestly think that St. Luke regarded Noah and Adam as fictional characters? Like seriously, just take a step back and look at Luke 3 as an objective reader: would anyone ever conclude from that genealogy that there is some kind of “clear break” between the historical and fictional characters? The answer is no. Christians and Jews alike, for millennia, have treated all of these figures as historical, and there’s no reason at all to suspect that Jesus and the Apostles were any different. Do you really think that you understand ancient near eastern literature better than those who emerged from that culture? I’ve been astounded at just how awful modern “biblical scholars” are at reading the Bible, often scoffing at Apostolic and Second Temple Jewish interpreters’ “creativity,” when really the ancients knew their Bible better than these sorry excuses for “academics.” Just take a look at Seraphim Hamilton’s absolute destruction of fools like Peter Enns for a clear example of this.
4. To be clear, if what you’re saying in this point is true, namely that our Councils were wrong about their interpretation of Scripture, then this would mean the Orthodox Church is not what she claims to be, and you should separate yourself from her. I don’t want you to do that, but that is the logical implication of the argument you’re making here. Because you have to understand that the Orthodox Church is not like Protestant sects; we actually believe that the Church has infallible authority and that she can definitively teach binding dogmas through her conciliar ministry, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against this facet of the Church (literally just read any patristic commentary on Matthew 16:18). A denial of this fact is simply a denial of the Orthodox faith.
Moreover, your broader point is mostly wrong anyways. While it’s true that we “know more” about ancient near eastern literature nowadays, this does literally nothing to change traditional interpretations of the Bible as historical, rather it only supports this view. The Bible is easily distinguishable from other ancient near eastern writings precisely because it’s told in the form of historical narrative, unlike the epic poems of near eastern mythology (see the work of Dr. Steve Boyd for more on that). We simply don’t see instances where ancient authors bridged together genealogies of those who were intended to be viewed as historical and those who were intended to be non-historical; such a distinction has only arisen in the past couple decades from western academia, and has (to my knowledge) zero precedent in the ancient world.
At the end of the day, just think about the narrative you’re pushing here. If it really is the case that Second Temple Jews, the Apostles, Jesus Himself, the Church Fathers, and the Ecumenical Councils all got Genesis 1-11 wrong, and it wasn’t until the 20th-21st century that modern scholars uncovered the true meaning of the text, then how plausible is it that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth? Like really, you expect a non-believer to buy that? At what point do we just admit we’re wrong and go find a different religion? You have to realize that truth claims are interconnected, and you simply cannot be a faithful Christian if you believe that Jesus allowed His Church to be in error on something that all of our Saints have considered to be one of the most fundamental pillars of our faith, namely the creation. Narratively speaking, it just doesn’t work.
5. The comparison with Arianism is not at all silly. You say that it was never taught by the Church that Jesus was created, and I agree, however this is my point with regard to Genesis 1-11: Not a single Father, Saint, Council, or approved Theologian in the entire history of the Church has ever taught what you believe about the text, it is a complete innovation born from Protestant and secular academia, and not the Apostolic Deposit of Faith. Hence, my point is that if you can reject the Church’s teaching on Genesis 1-11 on the grounds that “the Church has been wrong before,” then why can’t you also do this to the other teachings of the Ecumenical Councils, such as Nicaea I? At which point, why even remain in the Orthodox Church?
6. Your blog is called “Resurrecting Orthodoxy” and you wrote an entire book about why Ken Ham would be considered a heretic by patristic standards, and you advertised it as an Orthodox book (with the overt Orthodox symbolism on the cover). So even if you don’t intend to speak for the Church, that is the impression that your work gives off. Moreover, I pointed out in my original article that Ken Ham’s view of Adam and Eve as historical figures (not his theology of them) is actually a lot closer to St. Irenaeus’ than yours, given St. Irenaeus regarded Adam and Eve as historical figures who lived in an historically incorrupt world, which will be restored at the end of time, in agreement with his contemporaries like St. Theophilus of Antioch. Irenaeus’ view that Adam and Eve were “childlike” and “symbolic of humanity” was also taught by the other Fathers as well, and they further explained that this is not at all contradictory to the traditional YEC interpretation of them, given being childlike is not the same as being fallen, and symbolism is not the opposite of history-just look at all of the symbolism in the Gospels (Jesus is literally the personal symbol of Israel and humanity), does that mean the events in Jesus’ life didn’t really happen?
7. Okay, but none of that is fundamental to St. Augustine’s teaching on original sin, so what exactly is the point in bringing up this critique? Even if it was fundamental to his teaching, I’ve explained in great detail in my above comment and original article that the Bible absolutely does teach that sex is an impure result of the Fall, and that such corruptions warrant exclusion from the presence of God, and that all of these themes are organically tied to the very curses of Genesis 3, and you have not even attempted to seriously engage with my arguments in favor of this view. So unfortunately, no matter how many times you repeat the mantra that Genesis 1-3 is only pointing out the fact that we sin without actually describing the historical reasons behind why we sin, it will never constitute a legitimate refutation of my argument.
8. I’ve addressed this point above.
I apologize if I have come off as mean-spirited or rude in any of my above words, please know that I’m writing everything here out of a genuine desire to protect the teachings of the Orthodox Church, as well as to “speak the truth in love” to someone I regard to be in grave error about the very foundations of the Orthodox faith itself. Please pray for me that the Lord will guide us into mutual understanding and reconciliation with His Body the Church.
1. It’s not a non-argument. The claim that passion-filled sex is the thing that makes progeny sinful is wrong. IF that was correct, THEN that would mean God is unjust, because that would mean He would be punishing the progeny because his parents “made” him sinful. My argument is that is the wrong way to understand Genesis 3 AND that argument has no support in the Bible. The Orthodox teaching is getting to the point that human beings are sinful. That’s the point. And this gets us back to properly understanding Genesis 1-3 within it ANE context.
2. The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. (Gen 3:14 ESV);
And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; (Gen 3:17 ESV)
Also, there is a distinct literary structure going on throughout Genesis 1-11–Noah is presented as “Adam 2.0,” not God. I’ve written on that somewhere on this blog.
3. Adam and Eve are hardly mentioned at all throughout the rest of the Bible. And you are assuming that merely referencing Genesis 2-3 automatically means affirming its historicity. I think Luke finished his genealogy by basically cutting and pasting the genealogies in Genesis 1-11 to make his theological point that Jesus is the Lord of all humanity (as opposed to Matthew taking it back to Abraham, to emphasize Jesus was the king of the Jews)–and then there is the point that Matthew and Luke’s genealogies are almost completely different, even though they both go through Joseph. I’ve written on that as well elsewhere.
4. The Orthodox Church isn’t God–it’s main job is to bear witness to the teaching that has been handed down to the apostles. And history clearly shows that Orthodoxy has had its share of corruption and failings as well. That’s just reality. And the fact is that for the better part of 1900 years NOBODY had access to, or even was aware of the ANE we now have that sheds light on the original contexts of texts like Genesis 1-11. I’m not going to re-write all my past posts regarding the genre of Genesis 1-11–I will just point out that this is my area of expertise, and that Genesis 1-11 does indeed share the same literary genre of ANE myths. It does something radically different with it, but in terms of basic genre-identification is concerned, it is not historical narrative.
5-6. At no time in Church history has it been declared that a belief in a historical Adam and Eve was a fundamental tenant of the Christian faith. Church theologians and teachers have wrestled with those texts for 2,000 years and at no time was Ken Ham’s YECist view hailed as a core tenant of the Orthodox faith. And yes, his view is heretical because it is elevating a certain view of Genesis 1-11 to the same level as belief in the resurrection. He has made that a litmus test for who is really a Christian. That is wrong.
7. Sorry, you are wrong. You insist on wanting to know the “historical reasons behind why we sin” and that’s the problem. The Bible isn’t trying to give “historical reasons behind why we sin.” If you understand the ANE context, you will understand that (I’ll say it again) that Genesis 1-3 is teaching what humanity is: Image bearers who sin and are in need of redemption and sanctification. To go beyond that and to insist on being told the “historical reasons” is to go beyond what God has actually revealed.
I would suggest Peter Bouteneff’s book, “Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives.”
Dear Dr. Anderson,
Didn’t St. Paul think that Adam was a historical figure? NT Scholar Dr. N T Wright believed that St. Paul was clearly talking about a historical figure. Dr. Wright writes clearly believed in an historical Adam and Eve, but viewed it in light of the “mythical or metaphorical dimensions to the story.”
I understand that I am outmatched here since I am just a mere software programmer but I think it is clear that the Genesis story was meant to be historical. There’s no evidence of a shift from non-historical to historical. In any case, please offer your thoughts.
Yours Sincerely,
The Programming Nerd
Joel is correct. Scientific evidence through the Human Genome Project has shown that an original pair of humans as per the biblical tale in Genesis could not possibly have happened.
Dear Dr. Anderson,
I hope you are well Sir. I have been trying to get a response from you. I hope you will try to answer my objection. I am not even trying to be dishonest. Mr. Codex who even apologizes for his apparent ‘meanness’ can get a response from you but I can’t. Your blog has been helpful to me especially coming from an Eastern Orthodox Biblical Scholar. If I did anything wrong to you, then I apologize and I hope you block me rather than just ignoring my honest objections while answering another commenter. I don’t intend to go back and forth like Codex but I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
I think that there is no evidence of a movement from a non-historical narrative to a historical narrative. I think the rest of the Biblical writers thought that Adam and Even were real historical figures. Sure, the early church fathers did not have access to the ANE culture. That’s a god objection. That still does not mean the church fathers were wrong in seeing Adam and Eve as historical figures. I am not saying in the sense that the creation myth is a case by case narration of how the world was created but it is a telling of real historical figures that sinned against God. As New Testament Scholar Dr. N T Wright notes “Paul clearly believed believed in an historical Adam and Eve, but viewed it in light of the “mythical or metaphorical dimensions to the story”.
I can go further by pointing out 1st Timothy where Paul was using the creation order to justify the role of men and women in the Church. St. Paul used the creation order to speak against the ordination of women in certain roles in the church. Here, I speak as a Roman Catholic and not as a protestant. It would be ad hoc to argue that St. Paul would use the Jesus and his relationship to his church as a real illustration but the Adam and Eve illustration is pure non-historical. It seems to be an arbitrary choosing of what is real and what is not real when St. Paul does not give any indication that the stories were not real. There is no evidence that St. Paul saw the non-existent of Adam and Eve or him accommodating to the culture of the day.
I would like to sincerely hear your thoughts on these objections. I look forward to your reply.
Yours Sincerely,
The Programming Nerd
As a matter of fact, to say “the rest of the biblical writers thought Adam and Eve were historical figures” is a bit misleading, because Adam and Eve are hardly mentioned anywhere in the Bible outside of Genesis 2-5. Luke has copied the genealogies in Genesis 1-11, and then Paul mentions Adam a few times in his letters–that’s it. And then you can read Peter Bouteneff’s book “Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives” and see just how many of the early Church Fathers interpreted those chapters–it’s not as cut/dry as some people assume.
I do not believe Genesis 1-11 is historical narrative. Narrative? Yes. No, it is not historical. Again, it is loaded with literary parallels and commonalities with other ANE myths.
I don’t know how NT Wright could KNOW what Paul was THINKING about the issue of historicity of Adam when he references Adam. He is referencing the story in Genesis 2-3 to make a theological point regarding the difference between the present age and the age to come, between humanity in its natural state (i.e. Adam) and redeemed and transformed humanity in its future resurrected state (i.e. in Christ). To say, “Oh, he clearly thinks Adam was a historical figure” goes beyond what he actually says. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t–but not even NT Wright is a mindreader.
In I Timothy, he argues that women should be able to learn, just like men, but that they shouldn’t have authority OVER men. He then refers to Eve being deceived to emphasize WHY women should be allowed to learn–you don’t want them to be like Eve in Genesis 3 who was deceived. In any case, referencing that story to make that point does not necessitate saying that Paul was affirming the historicity of Adam and Eve. It’s like saying that when Jude makes reference to “The Assumption of Moses” that he believes Michael and the Devil got into a literal fight at a certain point in time. That’s really stretching it and going way beyond what is actually being said in the text.
Dr. Anderson,
This is going to be my last response because at this point I feel like this discussion is no longer fruitful. However, I would like to offer you a debate with the following resolution: “Whether one must believe original sin in order to be Orthodox,” with me taking the affirmative position. Please contact the email address I’ve provided above if you would like to accept the debate challenge and work out the details.
1. This is actually a non-argument because your claim is that it is unjust for God to punish someone for the sins or sinful state of someone else, however this is the exact claim that I went to lengths to refute, which you have not even interacted with at all. Whether it is sexual lust that is the means by which original sin gets transmitted is accidental to the doctrine itself, which simply states that children can lawfully receive fallen inheritances from their parents. The perfect example of this is in Genesis 9 when the sons of Ham receive the punishment for their father’s sins, which is an example of God “visiting the iniquity of fathers upon their children.” You have not demonstrated why this concept is unjust, rather you keep obfuscating the question. Every single Orthodox Christian writer who has ever spoken about Genesis 3 has read it in terms of the origin of sin, not a single approved teacher in the history of the Church has affirmed your heretical belief (I’m sorry if you find that offensive, but that’s what it is) that it’s “just about whether or not we sin,” as if the obvious needed to be stated.
2. I still don’t see your point. I never said that God didn’t curse the serpent and the ground, He clearly did that, the point I made is that He also cursed Adam and Eve, like I literally quoted the text to you. God cursed Eve to have birth pains, and He cursed Adam to die, a curse that was foretold in Genesis 2-3, “in the day that you eat… you shall surely die.” This is beyond dispute.
Moreover, your point about Noah being a new Adam literally does nothing to refute my point about him being a God-figure. Adam was supposed to do the things that God did, which is one of the concrete meanings of being made in the divine image, and so the fact that Noah does what Adam was supposed to do in fact proves that he is portrayed as a God figure, just as Jesus Christ is both true God and the new Adam: the perfected Adam. God planted a garden, so Noah plants a garden, God has the power of life and death, Noah has the power of life and death, God issues blessings and curses, and Noah issues blessings and curses. Following a consistent pattern, you have not even interacted with my argument here, instead you’re just trying to point to a different angle of the text, which you have not shown to contradict the Orthodox reading of it.
3. Well Adam and Eve may not be mentioned by name, however as you well know, their story shows up over and over and over again throughout the biblical narrative, and pretty much every single time it happens, it’s in the context of an historical event. As Meredith Kline has shown quite persuasively, the descent of God on Mt. Sinai is literarily structured the same way as God visiting Adam and Eve in the Garden, yet if the latter is mere fiction, why should we understand the former as history? This same argument can be applied to everywhere else we see Adam figures: King Solomon was an Adam figure, learning from the animals just as Adam did, yet does this symbolism therefore mean Solomon didn’t exist? You keep wanting to insist that because the story of Adam and Eve contains rich symbolism that it therefore isn’t historical, yet what is the basis for this argument? As I’ve mentioned before, the story of Jesus Himself contains rich symbolism, His life is a microcosm of the life of all Christians: we are all supposed to die to ourselves and rise again in the newness of life, and proceed to go out to sanctify the world; that’s why we call ourselves “Christians,” little Christs. Yet, because the life of Jesus was symbolic of all of our lives, does this mean that it didn’t happen? Someone following your logic here could easily conclude that, and in fact many liberal “Christian” scholars make eerily similar arguments when trying to argue that the resurrection was simply a myth.
The flaw in their (and your) logic is obvious: symbolism and history are not opposed. Of course St. Luke read the story of Adam and Eve through a symbolic lens, yet there is literally no argument you can make that he regarded them as fictional. No one in the ancient world ended the genealogies of men whom they regarded as significant with fictional characters. Not a single Christian or Jewish writer in the history of the Church has ever commented on the genealogy of Luke with the question of why he included people who were obviously intended to be fictional, not a single one. Scholars like yourself always push for the idea that we should read the Bible through a Jewish lens, yet when we do that, all we see are affirmations of the historicity of Adam and Eve. If it really is true that not a single person read the story of Adam and Eve correctly until the great secular scholars of the 20th century showed up, then why should we even care about this text? Maybe we still don’t understand it and it will take scholars from the 22nd century to show us its true meaning, how can we know?
4. The Orthodox Church is not God, but she speaks with the authority of God Himself, hence Matthew 16:18 and 18:18, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” and Luke 10:16, “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” See the article on my website titled “The Son of David and the New Priesthood” as well as Seraphim Hamilton’s article “What is an Ecumenical Council?” for a detailed exploration of the biblical theology of the Church and her authority. However, the fact that you don’t know this stuff makes me wonder how you were ever let into the Church to be quite honest. When you were received, the following was supposed to be asked of you during the rite of Chrismation:
“Priest: Hast thou renounced all ancient and modern heresies and false doctrines which are contrary to the teachings of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Church?
Answer: I have.
And again the Bishop saith: Dost thou accept the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Canons framed and established at the Seven Holy Universal and Provincial Councils, and the other traditions and ordinances of the Orthodox Church?
Answer: I do.
Bishop: Dost thou acknowledge that the Holy Scriptures must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which hath been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, hath always held and still doth hold?
Answer: I do.”
It seems pretty clear to anyone who’s reading our exchange that, if you were asked these questions today, you would not answer with the standard “I do,” rather you would say, as you have here, “the Orthodox Church isn’t God” and therefore, by implication, you can just ignore her teachings; and of course, if you were to do that during the rite of Chrismation, you would not have been allowed into the Church. Your approach to Scripture is simply not Orthodox, and in fact calling it Protestant is an insult to great Protestant theologians like Peter Leithart and James Jordan, rather your approach to Scripture is secular, and so I implore you to recant your statements before presenting yourself for communion in an Orthodox Church. I’m not saying this out of a place of malice or judgement, rather out of genuine regard for your soul and the integrity of the Church’s Holy Mysteries.
5-6. Actually, that Adam and Eve being historical is a fundamental pillar of the Orthodox faith has been affirmed multiple times in Church history. I literally quoted the Ecumenical and Pan-Orthodox Councils that make this very point, and your retort was that their teachings just don’t matter. According to the 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils, if you deny that Adam was real, and that we really inherit original sin from him, then you’re anathema. This same point is made over and over again by the Church Fathers in their writings against pagans who also liked to mock the story of Genesis 1-3. Moreover, in the Orthodox Church we believe that the rule of prayer is the rule of faith, and the simple fact is that you commemorate Adam and Eve as saints on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, and the Church does not commemorate fictional saints.
7. Sorry but it’s you who’s wrong about this. The Bible very clearly teaches that “by one man, sin entered into the world” (Romans 5:12), and every single Orthodox Christian commentator before the 20th century has always read this to be speaking of an historical Adam bringing sin and death into the creation. This is the very foundation upon which the cosmologies of Sts. Maximus and Symeon are built, cosmologies which have been received by the Church Catholic. You still have not answered the age old problem raised by St. Augustine: why do innocent infants die? They have no personal sins, yet they still die; and so if it’s not due to original sin, then why does it happen? The reason you keep avoiding this question is because you know the only way to answer it is by saying God either directly or indirectly kills them, yet this would place you outside the realm of biblical faith, which proclaims that God is not the author of death, but only man and the devil are. You cannot fall back on “well God just doesn’t tell us why the world is fallen,” when the text remains firm, “for by the sin of one, the multitude became sinners” (Romans 5:19).
Yes, it isn’t helpful to continue here. So, here are my last comments.
1. The point of Genesis 2-3 is that humanity is sinful. That’s the point.
2. My point is that the literal verb “cursed” is spoken to the serpent and about the ground. Your argument that Noah is a God-figure isn’t convincing. He is portrayed as “Adam 2.0.”
3. You point to a lot of typology and symbolism–good. That’s definitely there. But then you jump to, “Therefore Adam and Eve MUST be historical.” That is the flaw in your thinking. And my point regarding Genesis 1-11 is that in terms of genre it is not written as history. People (like myself) who have studied this for decades and who can be considered experts in the field acknowledge this.
4. Your comment here is condemnatory and pharisaical. If “Adam and Eve were historical figures 6,000 years ago” is a hill you are willing to die on, that’s your choice.
5. Here are some quotes from Peter Bouteneff’s book Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives.
“Although he did not take the paradise narrative literally, his reliance on typology and his understanding of its true sense and function were such that they would underscore the historical veracity of any scriptural narrative” –Bouteneff on Tertullian
The Genesis account “enshrines deeper truths than the mere historical narrative…and contains spiritual meaning almost throughout, using ‘the letter’ as a kind of veil to hide profound and mystical doctrines.” For Origen, “truthfulness” and “historical facticity” are distinct, not mutually dependent concepts. –Bouteneff on Origen
“Here the divine Word says this not so much about an individual as of the whole race, [for] the story of Adam and his sin will be interpreted philosophically by those who know that Adam means ‘mankind’ in the Greek language, and that what appears to be concerned with Adam, Moses is speaking of the nature of man.” —Origen in “Contra Celsus 4.40”
“Evil has no other origin than our voluntary falls…. Each of us is the first author of his own vice;…you are the master of your actions.” –Basil of Caesarea in “In Hex. 2.5”
“For all partake of the same Adam, and were led astray by the serpent and slain by sin, and are saved by the heavenly Adam and brought back by the tree of shame to the tree of life whence we had fallen.” –Gregory of Nazianzus (Or. 33.9)
“That is—and here we have a crucial and consistent feature of Gregory’s portrayal of the first human—Adam is us.” –Bouteneff on Gregory of Nazianzus
“Paradise and Adam are ultimately about us and our sin, a story that has its fulfillment in our re-creation in Christ, the second Adam” –Bouteneff on Gregory of Nazianzus
“Gregory does not envisage a historic pre-fallen immortal state…. He alludes twice in the Catechetical Oration to the fact that Moses is speaking through a story, or an allegory.” –Bouteneff on Gregory of Nazianzus
“None of the fathers’ strictly theological or moral conclusions—about creation, or about humanity and its redemption, and the coherence of everything in Christ—has anything to do with the datable chronology of the creation of the universe or with the physical existence of Adam and Eve. They read the creation narratives as Holy Scripture, and therefore as ‘true.’ But they did not seem them as lessons in history or science as such.” (Bouteneff’s conclusions)
***I am not going to be so eager or comfortable to declare that Origen, Tertullian, Basil, and Gregory are somehow anathema because they didn’t read Genesis 1-3 in the way you do. I invite you to read the whole book in order to get a better grasp of how the early Church Fathers approached Genesis 1-3.
Joel and others: I appreciate the work you put into all of this!
I just want to ask something. Has anyone, when considering the text about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, considered that for something to be “real” and supremely meaningful in theological terms, may not necessarily mean it had to happen in this space-time, or world, as we know it? Where is the Garden of Eden today? Is someone searching for the cherubim with flaming sword?
Why can’t we go back?
Could it be that this text tells us about real events, about beings created by God but with free will, who chose the wrong path by disobeying. They were thrown out of the Garden. Nature would never be the same and their life would be hard. What does “through sin death entered the world” imply? Why can’t it be literally true? Why does nature today groan waiting for Christ to come and restore all things? Could Adam and Eve’s sin in fact have resulted in the original idyllic world, or state of being, being replaced with our space-time universe through the Big Bang?
Maybe we are sinful beings simply because we are evolved beings and this implies selfishness — our survival instinct.
Why must asserting that the “original sin” of Adam and Eve is fundamental to Christian faith be in any way contradictory to believing in an ancient and evolved universe? Why can’t our own sinful nature have this precise cause, itself the consequence of “original sin”?
From the little I’ve gleaned about the latest science, it seems that the true nature of “reality” is still a mystery. Findings seem to be getting weirder a weirder actually…
Way to ask an easy question! haha…
I do think that there is much more to reality that we, in our mere humanness, know. But on the whole, when it comes to Genesis 1-11, I think it is a mistake to try to tie it in with our modern scientific discoveries in any way. Since I believe the Bible is inspired by God, that means its original message to its original audience is the inspired message. And since the original audience would have known nothing about evolution or the Big Bang, I just don’t see how these early chapters in Genesis would have been referring those things.
I think the picture we are given of Eden gives us a hint of the ultimate new creation in the age to come (after all, in Revelation, when John goes into the New Jerusalem, what does he see, but the Tree of Life and the River of Life–Eden, but better). But when it comes to human beings and this creation, I think the ultimate message of Genesis 1-3 really boils down to the following things: (A) Creation is good, but THIS creation isn’t the finished product; (B) Human beings are created in God’s image to act as royal-custodian-priests of His creation, but (C) Human beings sin and are slaves to death, still (D) God has promised to redeem and sanctify everything–He will work through humanity to redeem His creation–and that ultimate fulfillment is found in Christ.
Thanks for your reply Joel I don’t want to make this into a saga but I’m confused: isn’t your (our) rejection of young earth creationism based on modern scientific discoveries? Or is your rejection of their interpretation based only on their ignorance of literary genres?
On genres, couldn’t it be that God revealed his message in early Genesis in a simplified (possibly allegorical or mythological) form precisely because the original recipients of Genesis knew nothing about evolution or the big bang? They didn’t need to know about those things: they needed to learn about God, their relationship to him, to each other and to the rest of creation. And this message is still the important bit for us.
Still, people like to argue about the “how” and “when” and I feel my offering on this is far less far-fetched than some others…
I also don’t follow your statement that “He will work through humanity to redeem His creation”. I think this true only if you mean Christ became human and through doing that has achieved the ultimate redemption of not just his people but all of creation (i.e. at the end of time).
That’s the only way I see “humanity” being of any use because we sure ain’t doin’ too good a job of it at the moment… we might try, but how could humanity ever fix all the suffering out there? Abolish disease, pain, decay and death?
Hi Margaret,
Yes, I reject YECism because it is scientifically absurd. There is no evidence for it. In fact, all the scientific evidence we have refutes it. But for me, that is an entirely different issue than proper biblical interpretation of Genesis 1-11. On THAT issue, I was convinced that Genesis 1-11 was more in the genre of ancient Near Eastern myth LONG BEFORE I even cared to look into the whole creation/evolution debate. So, what you say in your second paragraph is entirely correct. God inspired Genesis 1-11 to speak to the Israelites in their ANE culture, using the kind of writing they would have been familiar with, to answer the kinds of questions they would be asking–and they wouldn’t be asking scientific questions as to how the material universe came into existence. And the basic four things Genesis 1-11 is teaching are: (1) There is ONE God, not many gods, and He is the creator of everything, and He is good and just; (2) His creation is good and orderly and has purpose; it isn’t the result of warring gods, where the winner god creates the earth out of the carcass of a loser god; (3) Humanity is created in His image, and therefore has inherent dignity, worth, and purpose to be God’s priestly kings of His creation; human beings were NOT created to be the worthless slaves of immoral, petty gods; and (4) Despite them being created in God’s image, human beings also sin and are enslaved to death. The entire Biblical story is thus how God works through history to eventually redeem human beings and transform His creation into something even better.
As for my statement about working through humanity, I’m referring to Genesis 3:15-16, where he speaks of there being enmity between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent’s offspring and the woman’s offspring, and how eventually the woman’s offspring would crush the head of the serpent. The fulfillment of that is obviously Christ, the “ultimate offspring” of the woman. BUT, to get to Christ, God worked through the Hebrews, the nation of Israel. He worked THROUGH them to get to Christ, who would fulfill His promise to defeat the serpent. And then, when you get to Revelation, specifically Revelation 12-13, what do you see? A dragon at war with a woman, and when he fails to kill her child (Christ), he goes off to make war with the rest of the woman’s offspring–that’s the Church, the followers of Christ. And one of the lessons of Revelation is that when Christians suffer for Christ, they are taking part in the sufferings of Christ, and it is through the sufferings of Christ (think, the serpent striking the heel of the woman’s offspring) that God eventually redeems the world. Yes, ultimately, it is Christ who redeems the world through his suffering, death, and resurrection, but Christians are called to suffer with him as well.
Thanks for clarifying, Joel.
So, basically the YEC people are reading things into Genesis. I am also reading things into the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, the expulsion, curses etc.
While what “Young Earth Creationists” are reading in is scientifically exceedingly bizarre, what I am reading in is simply untestable, being outside the realm of scientific study.
Makes sense to me theologically though, given the Church’s traditional view of original sin and yes, as Codex says, of an “incorruptible” original creation.
That’s not the world we inhabit!
That’s probably all from me on this – maybe I’ll go and crawl under a (very old) rock.
hahaha!