Irenaeus of Lyon: Heretics, Ken Ham, and the Proper Understanding of Adam and Eve (Part 2)

So what did Irenaeus believe about Adam and Eve? Or more properly, what does Irenaeus tell us about what the view of the early Church was concerning Adam and Eve?

In order to understand what Irenaeus says, though, we have to first understand what many of the heretics of Irenaeus’ day were saying about Adam and Eve. Remember, what we see from Irenaeus’ works is that already, within 150 years of the birth of Christianity, many aspects of the Gnostic worldview were threatening to corrupt Church Tradition and the presentation of the Gospel. One of the ways in which these Gnostic-influenced heretics were corrupting the traditional teaching of the Church was that they were teaching some rather odd things about Adam and Eve.

The Gnostic-Heretical View of Adam and Eve
Many heretics taught that God had created Adam as essentially a celestial-like being—a veritable superman, if you will, who possessed an amazing intellect, and who was perfect in every way. Therefore, when Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent, the Gnostics said they had fallen from a state of perfection, and along with them, a previously perfect creation. Therefore, when it came to Christ, the Gnostics taught that he came to restore us to that original state of perfection.

Now, the Gnostic version of the Adam and Eve story no doubt pictured them as purely spiritual, non-material beings who “fell” into the dirty world of materiality and physicality. They viewed this present material creation as a result of that “fall.” They taught that Christ was going to restore us to that original “pre-material/spiritual state” of Adam and Eve’s initial perfection.

I’m willing to bet that many of you read that and say, “Well, I think Adam and Eve were real, physical people—I disagree with Gnosticism on that point. But, they were perfect, weren’t they? Isn’t that the point? They fell from God’s perfection, right? The reason why nature has earthquakes and tornados and hurricanes is because of their sin, right? Christ came to restore us to the original state of perfection that Adam and Eve had, right?”

Well, not so fast. If you think that, while that doesn’t make you a Gnostic, that does mean that your view of Adam and Eve and the “fall” isn’t the view of the early Church. In fact, it was this Gnostic understanding of Adam and Eve as perfect beings with towering intellects and supreme powers that Irenaeus made a point to mock and savage.

Irenaeus’ Response to the Gnostic-Heretical View of Adam
In response to such a heretical view of Adam, Irenaeus first emphasized over and over again throughout his writings that Adam was created out of dirt and mud: he wasn’t some sort of glorious, towering, angelic-like superman. No—he was a mere creature, formed form the base earth. Irenaeus was not going to let the Gnostics claim to be so “spiritual” that they rejected God’s good creation. As Denis Minns said:

The high “spirituality” of his opponents provoked distrust in Irenaeus. It also seems to have heightened his own delight in the material, fleshly dimensions of the human condition which so disgusted them. At every opportunity, he provocatively reminds them that the first human being was made from earth. When the gnostics say that real human beings are spiritual and lightsome he insists they are nothing of the sort: they are, indeed, profoundly material and earthy, they are made of mud (Minns 57).

The second way in which Irenaeus confronted the Gnostic-Heretical teaching of Adam was that he taught that no one among the early Church Fathers had, in fact, taught that Adam was a perfect being. He’s right. There is no evidence among any of the early Church Fathers that taught such a thing. Given Irenaeus’ close proximity in time to Christ himself, it is safe to say that neither Christ nor his Apostles taught that Adam was some sort of perfect being either.

Quite the contrary: Irenaeus said that Church Tradition had always taught that Adam and Eve were essentially children who had yet to develop into full maturity. Therefore, their sin was not so much a “fall from perfection,” as it was childish immaturity. Now, if that shocks you, consider something else. Irenaeus viewed Adam and Eve as symbolic of all humanity. For Irenaeus, Adam was never just an individual—he symbolized all humanity. In that respect, as Denis Minns has pointed out, “Irenaeus’ reading of Genesis 1-3 is far more modern, far more alive to the symbolic function of the story than the reading that has prevailed in the Western Church for most of its history” (71).

What this means is that Irenaeus taught that the story of Adam and Eve was the story of humanity: we are created in God’s image, but our purpose and task as human beings is to grow into the full likeness of God by means of relationship with Him. Genesis 1:26 says, “Let us make Adam in our image, after our likeness.” The Orthodox Church has always made a distinction between “in God’s image” and “after God’s likeness.” Simply put, God’s image is something we are born with—it is part of our nature; God’s likeness is something we grow into, if we so choose.

Since Irenaeus sees Adam as a child, perhaps a quick analogy with help. My son is “in my image”—meaning, he looks like me. Even in the womb, the ultrasound showed he had my profile. But as of yet, he is not “in my likeness.” He has yet to grow up—if I raise him right, and if he makes good decisions, in time he will probably be very much like me. We all know this. When boys grow up into men, and girls grow up into women, they realize they are “like” their fathers and mothers more than they realize. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think it is one that will do very well.

Side Note: Did Ireneaus think Adam and Eve were Historical People?
Now, a bit of a side note is in order. In his discussion of Irenaeus, Denis Minns does say that Irenaeus did think of Adam and Eve as real individuals.  Perhaps Irenaeus did…but I don’t know how anyone can decisively tell that based on his writings. I think too often we tend to project back on ancient writers and assume that since they discussed (in this case) Adam and Eve, that they must have viewed them as real, historical people. Answers in Genesis makes this kind of argument all the time: since Jesus and Paul mentioned Adam, Eve, and Noah, that supposedly means they thought they were historical people.

Let me just say, that might be the case, but you simply cannot make that argument from the text at all. What we see in the case of Irenaeus’ argument involving Adam and Eve is that the point of his argument is to say something about humanity in general, God’s purposes involving His creation, and the goal of salvation in Christ. He is making an argument regarding human identity in relationship to creation and to God. He simply is not engaging in a “historical” argument—that is not his focus. Even if he did view Adam and Eve as two historical people, it is abundantly clear from his writings that such a point was incidental and minor in light of his larger teaching regarding how Adam symbolizes all humanity.

The Challenge to Us: Take Irenaeus Seriously
In any case, the idea that Adam and Eve were child-like and the claim that they are in fact symbolic of humanity has some huge implications for how we understand Christ, salvation, and God’s purposes. Given the fact that Irenaeus is claiming that this is the view that the early Church, the Apostles, and probably Christ himself had regarding Genesis 2-3, we need to take it seriously. Yes, such a view might send shockwaves through our brains, but we cannot dismiss it. We have to consider that perhaps our assumption that Adam and Eve were somehow “perfect” is, in fact, wrong.

I realize this is a challenge, but I think it is a challenge worth taking. We cannot shrink back and reject Irenaeus simply because what he says doesn’t “jive” with what we think. He is conveying the teaching of the early Church of the first 100 years of its existence. He is conveying teaching that had been given to him by Polycarp, who got it from John the Apostle, who got it from Jesus himself. That fact demands that we take it seriously.

The problem, as I well know, is that some will dismiss Irenaeus out of hand and reject what he says as being “the traditions of men.” Ken Ham does that. One of the reasons I was let go from the Christian school at which I worked for 8 years was that, by taking Irenaeus seriously, I was putting “the traditions of men” ahead of Scripture. It didn’t matter that Irenaeus’ teaching had come from Polycarp, from John the Apostle, from Jesus himself. For my former headmaster, Irenaeus’ teaching conflicted with his assumptions about Genesis 2-3, and with what Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis claimed about Genesis 2-3—therefore, that meant it conflicted with Scripture.

I find that both comical and distressing, for in the writings of Irenaeus, the first man to write a formal treatise against the prevailing heresies that threatened the Christian faith, we find that one of the characteristics of the early heretics was that it was the heretics who claimed Adam and Eve were perfect. And here in the 21^st century, groups like Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis go around claiming that before the Fall, not only were Adam and Eve perfect, but they even had a “perfect genome.” Their sin, according to Answers in Genesis, caused mutations in the formerly perfect genome, and that has led to the countless problems in human beings today, from cancer, leukemia, retardation, downs syndrome, cleft palates, etc.

Yet where in the Bible is there anything about a perfect genome, or genetic problems being a result of sin? If your answer is, “Nowhere,” you’d be right. And that, I submit is a huge problem with both the heretics of Irenaeus’ and the heretical views of Ken Ham today.

The Heretics of Irenaeus’ Day and Answers in Genesis are Cut from the Same Cloth
Before we continue with Irenaeus’ teaching about Adam, humanity, Christ, and salvation, I want to end this post with one more point.

In his book about Irenaeus, Denis Minns made the following comment:

“Most of the great heresies of the Christian Church have been driven by an impatience with complexity and untidiness. Despite all the bewildering detail of many of their myths, the gnostics too were driven by a similar, urgent longing for simplification. All the anxieties that arise from the fact that we are embodied creatures can be swept aside if only one can believe that the spirit alone matters, that bodiliness is not an essential dimension of being human. In general, orthodoxy resists this drive to simplification.” (91)

If you try to read Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, your head will spin as he describes in full detail all the truly bizarre claims of the Gnostics. Minns’ observation is therefore crucial: for the Gnostics, the idea that God would create physical beings and a physical world, and the idea that He would allow pain and suffering in that world just didn’t make sense to the Gnostics. How could a supposedly good God allow for such messiness? It just can’t be—and so they came up with their own “more simplified” theology: “Spirit world” = GOOD! “Material world” = BAD! Genesis 3 is about a “fall” from that “spiritual perfection,” and Christ comes to save us from this sinful material world and restore us to that “original perfection.”

But such a “simple explanation” didn’t (because it couldn’t) deal with reality. And because it didn’t deal with reality, the Gnostics had to come up with more and more details to justify their “simple explanation”—and the whole thing just become mind-boggling silly. By contrast, as Minns points out, Christian orthodoxy resists over-simplification. It embraces complexity and mystery. It doesn’t try to explain every detail of God’s mysterious purposes—only that which He reveals.

The Gnostics, in their attempt for a neat, tidy explanation, ended up with an incomprehensible “theology” of spirit beings, a demiurge, Mother Achamoth, the Bythus, and the Pleroma…the list can go on. It is maddening to try to keep such a “simple explanation” straight.

Similarily, in their attempt to give a “simple explanation” that the Bible says the universe is 6,000 years old, Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, have ended up giving some of the most outrageous, maddening explanations to support that supposedly “simple explanation”: perfect genomes, “kinds,” Noah’s advanced technology, bizarre explanations to explain away how stars can be millions of light years away and still inhabit a 6,000 year old universe…the list can go on.

My point is simple. While Irenaeus was not talking about the modern “creation/evolution” issue, he was dealing with some very heretical teaching, and he made it a point to clarify what the early Church Tradition really taught about the topic of Adam and humanity—it was the teaching he received from Polycarp, who received it from John the Apostle, who received it from Jesus Christ himself.

We have that teaching in writing–we know what the early Church taught about Adam and Eve. It goes all the way back to Christ and the Apostles themselves. When we read it, we find that both the heretics of Irenaeus’ day and the young earth creationist movement of today make very similar claims about Adam. Not only that, but in order to back up such claims, both the ancient heretics and the modern day young earth creationist movement have come up with some truly bizarre claims that have no basis anywhere than their own imaginations. They are certainly not in the Bible.

In my next post, we’ll delve into the specifics of how such a view of Adam and Eve as children impact our understanding of humanity, salvation, and Christ.