Re: BIBLE:first humans

Geoffrey Horton (ghorton@mail.gte.net)
Thu, 12 Sep 1996 21:00:23 -0500

Dave Campbell and Bill Frix have combined to pose quite a conundrum here.
Summarizing madly, Dave asks if Adam and Eve did not literally exist, who
was the first human. Bill muddies the waters a bit by asking what is the
source of sin if not from Adam. Let me quote a bit from Bill:

>... but
> if Adam was not an individual, from where did sin come? If evolution
> was the producer of humanity, there is no direct source of the
> concept of sin, hence no need of a savior, hence Jesus cannot be the
> Savior of the World, as He claimed to be.

My thoughts on these questions perhaps may make things even less clear, but
here goes:

For me, sin is the price of the gift of free will. God set us free to
follow him, or to follow something else. Jesus' action as Savior was to
make it possible for us to make the choice to follow God. I'm wandering
awfully close to heresy, I'm afraid, so maybe I'd better just stop that
train of thought there and add only that the first human was the first one
able to make that decision.

One can easily wander off from here into all sorts of interesting
questions, such as whether animals have souls, the whole matter of
predestination, and various others. One can, but I'm not going to . . .

Geoff